


White Rabbit

by rabidbinbadger



Series: Unfinished Business [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Season/Series 10, Angst, Fluff, Human Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Season/Series 10, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:28:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 59
Words: 123,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24492040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidbinbadger/pseuds/rabidbinbadger
Summary: Cas is back. That means things are gonna be okay, right?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Unfinished Business [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769290
Comments: 184
Kudos: 109





	1. No Place Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus wept I am SO SORRY it has taken so long to start getting this cursed project out to you. Firstly, it was only supposed to be 20k max, which, yeah that didn’t happen. Then pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did. I lost my notes, then my laptop screen broke, then the incredibly old tablet I was using after that also broke. I have literally written the last 60k of this on a borrowed iPad. Because of that there might be some funny formatting, weird instances of capitalisation etc. If you spot any please let me know and I’ll fix them. For some reason the spellcheck on this thing thinks CHarlie is the correct way to spell that name and actually autocorrects the extra capital in. Helpful!
> 
> Updates Monday and Thursday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters to get the ball rolling and then it’ll be one every Monday and Thursday as long as everything goes to plan. It’s all written, just some of the later chapters need a little extra work, so I don’t foresee any issues.

They break apart when Cas’s arms start to shake – he’s still fragile, still tired. Dean lets him go easily, reluctance to lose Cas’s touch outweighed by worry for him. He looks breakable, and not just physically. It’s in the way he holds himself, some of that old confidence and surety swept away. After the loss of his grace he was always in a weak and unfamiliar body, relatively speaking, but he never behaved like it. Not until now.

“Have you been eating properly?” Dean asks, “Has Sam been looking after you?” And of course, he knows Sam will have done his best, but he can’t help mother-henning.

“As well as I’d let him.” Cas answers as he bends down to retrieve his stick from the floor. He could ask Dean for help, but he won’t. He still has his pride, still wants to prove that he can at least do one thing for himself.

Something touches him unexpectedly on the shoulder and he flinches away violently, panic flaring even though he’s safe here he knows he’s safe but

It’s Dean. It’s Dean and he needs to calm down. It’s fine, he’s fine.

“Sorry.” Cas mumbles at the floor, missing the abject look of horror on Dean’s face. “Reflex.”

Cas grasps his cane and rises to his feet, and by the time he stands, Dean’s face is carefully blank.

“Can I help?” Dean asks, hesitant and awkward. Cas shakes his head, not quite able to summon the energy to talk, and then he starts to hobble to his room.

Their room, he’s gotta remember that it’s their room again now.

Except, shit.

He comes to a halt outside the door and waits for Dean who’s been trailing behind at an awkward distance, like he isn’t sure whether he was supposed to be following.

“Before we, there’s something I have to—” He struggles to get the words out, is oh so grateful when Dean interrupts.

“I saw.” His tone is neutral but there’s a flash of something across his face, hurt maybe.

“I didn’t do it because I hated you.” That comes out a lot easier, words tripping over his tongue, garbled together in their insistence to be heard. “I did it because it hurt too much, being reminded of what I’d lost every time I opened my eyes.” The truth pours out, and he regrets it at Dean’s flinch, the self-disgust clearly written on his face. He never intended to hurt Dean, and yet. And yet here he goes twisting the knife again. 

“Cas, I’m so sorry, man, I—”

“It wasn’t your fault.” 

“I could’ve—”

“Don’t.” Cas snaps, in a sudden fit of temper. He’s not sure where it came from, wants to row it back immediately, but can’t find the strength to. Just sighs instead.

Dean wants to argue, wants to reach out and reassure Cas, apologise and take the blame. But he doesn’t. He gets it, he thinks, the sudden flip. The problem with self-pity is it ain’t much fun for everyone around you. This isn’t about making Dean feel better, this is about Cas marking the subject as closed, he doesn’t want to hear about it. That’s fine, Dean can do that. Doesn’t mean he’ll stop blaming himself, but he can stop inflicting that on Cas. He deserves that.

Dean’s fingers itch to reach out and touch Cas’s hand, stroke over the pronounced ridges of his knuckles, map out how the shape has changed – the valleys deeper, the peaks sharper. He holds himself in check, though. He doesn’t want to make Cas flinch again, or make him angry. He looks a hundred kinds of shaken up now, exhausted too. He needs to rest.

“Are you, um, do you—” Dean flounders, unable to find a casual way of asking if Cas wants him to stay or go. Cas’s tense posture relaxes a little, barest hint of a smile poking through. And god, Dean’s missed that. It sets a little flutter in his chest, some kind of warmth oozing through his veins.

It’s good to see Cas smile again.  
  
Now he’s just got to work on deserving it.

*

Cas’s frustrated anger melts away at Dean’s awkward fluster. He’s like a thousand cliché teenagers rolled into one 6-foot package, awkward and shy around the guy he loves. Cas could never resist his charm, neither the calculated version nor the natural one. But he’s tired, so tired he can barely string a sentence together. Anything and everything he does nowadays comes with a physical toll, but this day was loaded with an emotional one too.

“We can move your things back in tomorrow.” He hopes Dean sees the invitation there, because he hasn’t got the energy to explain himself. Instead he shuffles into the room, leaves the door open for Dean to follow. Dean hesitates a moment, and Cas tries to dredge up the energy to chastise him for his skittishness, but then he comes inside and closes the door.

“Is that okay?” Dean asks as he shuts it, suddenly realising that maybe closed doors aren’t something Cas likes anymore, like maybe he needs an escape route in his eye-line. Cas is touched, hadn’t even thought of that. He doesn’t associate doors with his captivity. That’s, other things. He grits his teeth, forces his mind ruthlessly onto a different track, forces himself to speak in the hope that the exhaustion will distract him.

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

“Good, uh. That’s. I’m glad.” Dean says, and mentally kicks himself. He’s what, he’s glad that Cas isn’t afraid of closed doors? What sort of dumb thing is that to say?

It doesn’t matter though, because Cas is looking fondly at him, like can’t believe that after all of this time and all of this bullshit Dean is still an awkward fucking nerd.

“Smooth as ever.” Cas manages to say, is rewarded with an affronted look from Dean.

“I’m devastatingly smooth.”

Cas just raises an eyebrow and Dean splutters, awkwardness disintegrating as he falls back into a pattern he recognises – bickering over dumb shit.

“I was smooth enough to charm your bitch ass!”

Except here the pattern breaks, because while Cas knows what he would have said, “only because I took pity on you”, or some variant thereof, the thought of speaking still exhausts him and he wants, more than anything in the world, to be unconscious.

So instead he just nods, climbs slowly into bed and sinks under the warm blanket, lying on his side so he can still see Dean. It’s close to bliss, and he’s glad he was in such a hurry to intercept Dean that he didn’t bother to throw on clothes, that he’s still in his pyjamas and about to throw the conscious world a middle finger.

Except Dean is still standing there in his jeans and boots, awkward once more. Cas realises fuzzily that he’d been about to hightail it across the country, is probably awake and wired up on coffee and god knows what else to keep him going through the long night. 

“If you’re not tired...” Cas trails off, is summoning up the energy to finish the sentence when Dean interrupts.

“No, it’s not that, I just.”

“What?” Cas asks, with a vague feeling of trepidation. If Dean’s changed his mind and is about to bolt, he isn’t sure he has the energy to stop him.

But Dean just gives a lopsided smile, leans down to start undoing his laces.

“It’s gonna sound dumb, but I still can’t believe this is real, feel like I’m gonna wake up in in the backseat of the Impala with a bad hangover and a crick in my neck.”  
  
Cas thinks he should probably reassure Dean, tell him good things so happen. He doesn’t, though, he just pats the empty side of the bed, a quiet invitation. Good things might happen, and he might be happy to see Dean, to have him back, but he’s still not quite ready to label his current situation positively.

Dean strips down to his boxers and shirt, suppresses a smile as Cas’s fierce gaze drifts and he struggles to keep his eyes open. He thinks about hunting around for a pair of sleep pants like the ones Cas is wearing, acutely aware that he’s a lot more naked than Cas is and not sure if that’s okay or not. It might be a psychological comfort thing, the long sleeves and pyjamas, not wanting to be exposed, or it might just be because there’s no meat and very little muscle left on his bones and he gets cold easy. He probably won’t mind if Dean’s a little less covered, but he’s not going to strip off entirely. It wouldn’t feel right – equal, somehow.

It’s weird being this undressed for Dean, anyway. Much as he’d got used to a more casual life, he pretty easily snapped back to the on-the-road habit of crashing out fully dressed. Habit of a lifetime verses a few months. And at one time he’d have felt vindicated that he hadn’t turned soft, now it just depresses him.

Dean slips into the bed, being careful not to nudge or jostle Cas, who looks pretty close to being fast asleep already. Either he’s not, or Dean’s movement wakes him up because his eyes flicker open and he reaches out a gentle hand and strokes Dean on the cheek.

“Thank you for staying.” Cas tells Dean in a barely-there whisper, and then he retreats back to his side of the bed, turns onto his other side to try and appease the persistent ache in his shoulder.

Dean suppresses his disappointment. Much as he might be desperate to touch Cas, much as it might feel wrong to be this close to him without being able to touch him, he respects Cas’s need for space. He can do this; this is the fucking easy bit. The least he can do. 

That night Cas sleeps better than he has for a good, long while, the familiar, soft sound of Dean’s breathing in the bed next to him soothing, reassuring.

Dean, meanwhile, lies awake and thrumming with nervous energy that he can’t shake off. His brain won’t switch off, won’t focus on anything in particular either. Just a fragmentary whirlwind, cut through with a certainty that the minute he falls asleep he’s going to roll over and invade Cas’s personal space, upset or distress him.

Three, maybe four hours pass before Dean realises this isn’t going to work. He can’t relax, can’t shut it down. Not quite yet, anyway. He sits up on the bed, holds his head in his hands and tries to feel out for some vague feeling of tiredness. He comes up with nothing, knows that no matter how long he lies there he isn’t going to sleep. That’ll come with time, and exhaustion. It’s not just Cas stopping him, it’s mostly not the fear of doing something stupid in his sleep and getting this chance, this fucking undeserved gift swiped away from him. Mostly.

He sighs, probably too loud, but hey, Cas is dead to the world. Which is, unfortunate phrasing. “Fuck.” He mutters under his breath, stands up.

*

Cas wakes up the moment Dean’s weight shifts and he panics a little at first, not used to having someone else in his bed. He doesn’t have enough time to do more than jerk his eyes open before he recognises the broad back in front of him and he relaxes again. It’s Dean, it’s safe. Things are okay.

He wants to reach out, stroke a hand under his shirt and feel the warmth of his skin, wants to draw him close and speak to him, tell him he loves him. Tell him how happy, how relieved he is that Dean stayed, that he stayed for him. He opens his mouth, but the words get trapped somewhere, and by the time he can choke them up past his useless throat, Dean has already left the room. 


	2. You Can Have Your Emotions Once I’ve Had Some Coffee

Dean closes the door with a soft click, makes his way down the corridor. He pauses momentarily when he crosses the door that’ll lead him towards the gym but shakes his head and carries on. Sure, it might tire him out, but at what cost? He’s not Sam, he doesn’t enjoy exercise – only does the bare minimum that’ll keep him in hunting shape. And anyway, his fighting style has always been more about cunning than brute force, so his lifestyle keeps him comfortably on form enough that he doesn’t have to bother with the extra nonsense.

So instead he carries on to the kitchen, automatically flicking on the coffee maker through force of habit. He doesn’t even clock what he’s doing until it’s already halfway finished and he shrugs and lets it carry on. He’s so awake coffee probably won’t help or hinder him at this point. Might as well just drink it.

 _Or, you could pour it down the sink where it belongs and get a beer instead_ , the familiar bastard voice stirs, makes a gentle suggestion. It seems like a perfectly reasonable idea – just a little something to smooth him over, tire him out so he can go back to Cas instead of loitering around here.

Except it won’t be. It won’t be one beer to settle him down so he can sleep in the same bed as the man he’s missed like a fucking wound to the chest. It’ll be two, three, four. It’ll be passing out in the kitchen and being found, reeking of booze and with a crick in his neck – having to explain that this isn’t a judgement on Cas. That he does want to stay.

He can pretty much hear Charlie’s voice kicking around his head, ringing him out for drinking to cope without actually managing to cope. Drinking like Cas was gone and not just hurt. He’s gotta put Cas first, help him recover. No more benders or binges. Seems kinda insensitive, y’know, considering the guy has a real problem whereas Dean just has a crutch he’s been leaning on for years but has somehow only just noticed.

So coffee, and, maybe while he’s up he can do some research – see if there’s anything he can do to help. He pulls over Sam’s laptop, starts to type.

*

Sam wakes up with aches in every part of his body and something warm laying on him.

“Geddof, Riot”. He hits out at the furry lump, trying to push it off the bed. Except the furry lump has a decidedly person shaped face, and, huh.

“Ow.” Charlie scolds, sitting up blearily as Sam scrambles to do the same, nearly falling off what he now realises is a sofa and not a bed.

He has a moment to appreciate Charlie’s dishevelled state – like a hungover Hermione Granger with tent hair – before his brain helpfully slots all the pieces of yesterday evening together and slings him a great big screaming dollop of foreboding. He scans the room for Dean, upgrades the grim feeling to something toeing the line between anger and panic as he clocks that Dean is nowhere to be seen. He pushes himself to his feet, hoping it’s not too late – maybe Dean leaving woke him up. Maybe he’s still close by enough to catch and at least say fucking goodbye to, the raging goddamn coward.

Sam runs into the kitchen, skidding along the floor and hoping to hell he left shoes somewhere around here – and comes to a dead halt. Because there’s Dean, fast asleep on Sam’s laptop, cheek mashing down half the keys as the poor machine repeatedly beeps an error message protest.

Charlie wanders in blearily and takes in the scene. She rolls her eyes at Dean, gently prises his head off the keyboard without waking him up and shifts the laptop out of the way before settling him back down on the table.

“Only he could sleep through that racket an inch from his earballs.” She tuts.

Sam doesn’t even register the made-up word, doesn’t register most of the sentence. “He’s still here.”

He can’t quite believe it. Sure, Dean had promised he’d stay until at least morning, but, well. Sam had still expected a middle of the night exodus anyway. Maybe accompanied by a text once he was a safe distance away – stayed the night, never promised to be here when you woke up sort of thing.

“Looks like it.” Charlie agrees cautiously, trying very hard to keep the implicit “for now” out of her tone.

“W- what’s he doing out here, though?” Not the question Sam thought he was gonna ask.   
Charlie peers at the laptop and the almost full mug next to it, decides to go for facetious instead of serious. “Googling indecipherable strings of nonsense and not drinking his coffee by the looks of things.”

At Sam’s look she leans further over; tabs open the laptop’s history and prays she won’t need brain bleach as a result. She doesn’t get a chance because Dean picks that moment to splutter to wakefulness, jerking up and smashing into her.

“Jesus fuck – what—”

“Ow, fuck, Dean!”

There’s a moment of awkward spluttering, in which Charlie closes the browser and pretends she definitely was not snooping, and Dean collects his scattered wits and places himself in the universe. Bunker, kitchen – with Sam and Charlie, who are possibly trying to kill him for reasons as yet unknown.

Dean stands blearily. “What time is it? I should—”

“Be on your way, right.” Sam says, relief apparently having been fleeting, overridden now by bitterness.

Dean blinks at him, a little taken aback – and then he remembers where he left it with Sam and Charlie and that they can’t read his mind.

He’s not caffeinated enough for this shit.

“I talked to Cas last night.” He mutters, sniffs at his cold coffee and decides no, that’s not gonna cut it. “Anyone want coffee?”

“Sure.” Charlie says, at the same time as Sam splutters, “What?”

“I said do you want coffee?”

“Dean.” He’s got his warning tone on, the _so-help-me-god-I-am-going-to-break-your-legs_ one. Often threatened, never actually followed through with. Still, Dean repeats what Sam actually wants to hear. He looks pretty pissed and pretty sleep deprived. Today might be the day.

“I talked to Cas, okay?”

“And?” Sam prompts, not expecting good news. Dean doesn’t have the face of someone who’s spent the night happily reconciling – less bubbly, more tired and drawn and also with the imprint of half a keyboard on his face.

“And I fucked up, man, but he said he still wants me around for some reason.” He shrugs, as though utterly mystified why the guy who fucking loves him, fell to save his goddamned life, would still want him to hang around.

“That’s love for you.” Charlie’s tone is joking but she’s not being entirely facetious.

Dean brushes it off with a snort, starts fiddling around with the coffee machine in a blatant attempt to end the conversation. Sam’s not having that though. He’s still not entirely sure what’s going on, feels like he’s missing something, something obvious.

“So, you’re staying?”

Dean shrugs. “Long as Cas wants me to.”

“Just like that?”

Dean’s shoulders tense, and then he sighs, turns back to face them. “He was the one I was leaving for, turns out that’s not what he wants, so I’m sticking around. Happy?”

The relief hits Sam like a physical thing. He knew the road Dean would’ve gone down if they let him slip away unchecked. Drinking and fighting, and maybe not actively trying to hurt himself, but definitely not giving a shit if he somehow wound up in a showdown too big to handle. It wouldn’t have been a long road, that’s for sure.

“Thank fuck!” Sam grabs Dean in a hug, laughing as he tries to fight free half-heartedly.

“It’s too early for emotions, geddoff me.” Dean says as Sam lets him go, grinning like a giddy child.

“Jesus, how are you so happy pre-caffeine? I’d expect it from Little Miss Sunshine over there, but my own brother – a morning person? Eugh.”

“Speaking of caffeine?” Charlie prompts, but she’s also smiling. They both are, and Dean’s disgusted by it. Still, he’s nothing if not a good host, so he begrudgingly gets two extra mugs, delivers them their hot caffeine even though they clearly don’t need it.

“So, where’s Cas?” Charlie asks.

“Asleep, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Haven’t seen him since last night. Couldn’t sleep so I came out here and then, yeah.” He gestures at the computer.

“He’ll probably be up soon.” Sam says. “I don’t remember the last time he had an uninterrupted night.”

“Huh. Sleepin’ like the de— like a baby when I left him.” They all pretend not to notice Dean’s fumble and there’s an awkward moment of silence before he turns and starts rummaging in the fridge.

Charlie and Sam exchange glances.

“So, he’s staying.” Charlie begins in an undertone.

“Yeah, and I’m glad, so fucking glad, but—”

“But he doesn’t seem too thrilled?” Charlie guesses.

“Yeah.”

“Give him time. The layers of emotional constipation it has to go through, it probably hasn’t hit him yet.”

“What hasn’t hit who yet?” Dean interrupts, and they both start.

“Nothing!”

“Hrm.” Not suspicious at all, but Dean can’t be bothered to argue, limits himself to a sceptical noise.

“I’m thinking pancakes for breakfast. Bacon, maple, the whole nine?”

“Bacon would be perfection.” A rough voice interrupts – Cas, standing at the door, apparently channelling Chandler Bing. It raises mixed emotions in Dean – sure he loves that Cas has pop culture references now, but he’ll never be okay about how they got into his head.

Cas has changed out of his pyjamas and into loose track pants and even looser short sleeved shirt, but, Dean can’t help noticing, no shoes or socks. Once a goddamn hippy...

“You’re looking well.” Sam says, and he means it. Cas looks the most rested he’s looked for a long while, in stark contrast to raccoon-eyed Dean.

Cas _feels_ rested, too, the faintest stirrings of something pleasant attempting to gain traction. He brutally stamps it down. He’s learned his lesson; good things don’t stay good things – are just there to soften you up for the misery waiting in the wings. Good things only exist to make the bad things worse–

His chest feels tight and he knows he’s close to tipping the scales over into a panic attack. Breathe, fucking breathe. He’s safe here, good things are gonna happen, good things are gonna keep happening. He’s home. He’s fucking home.

Somehow he throttles it down to a manageable level – still hovering tentatively there but not overwhelming – and makes his way over to a seat. He doesn’t think he gave anything away, hopes that at least if he did no one asks him about it. What the fuck is he supposed to say? I thought I felt happy and that terrified me.

Stop.

He looks around the room, clocks Charlie for the first time and starts, apparently loses all brain to mouth filter in his surprise.

“You look like a hedgewitch.”

“Nice to see—”

She’s interrupted by a startled noise from Dean. Something between a whimper and a laugh. Everyone turns to look at him, a little confused, a little worried.

Dean can’t speak for a moment, completely and utterly floored by Cas’s blunt comment. He doesn’t even know why, it was just a stupid, surprised, throwaway insult. So why does Dean feel like the universe has fucking slotted back into place?

Because it’s Cas. Cas like he used to be. Not Cas on the verge of breaking down, torn up with rage or exhaustion or compulsion. Cas being a blunt little shit and everyone just rolling with it. It’s the real Cas peeking out from behind all the traumatic bullshit.

“Nothing bad, just...”

“Just what?” Sam prompts.

“Just, we’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” 

He starts laughing, misses the significant look that Charlie throws Sam, even misses Cas coming up to him until he’s right there, awkward little smile on his face as he brings a hand up to Dean’s face, wipes away the tears that can’t be anything but joy.

“I think so.” Cas says, not letting the panic show on his face. 

This is good. This is good and it’s going to stay that way.

Good things do happen.

Please. 


	3. We Must Have at Least One Hobby That Doesn’t Involve Murder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to put Sam in the tags somehow lmao. Rest assured, Sam Winchester is actually in this fic and I have now added the tag.

Dean recovers from his moment fairly quickly, but the residual feeling stays a while, settling in his chest as he fumbles through the cupboards looking for flour, eggs and... whatever else you need to make pancakes. Okay so maybe he hasn’t quite recovered, but he isn’t used to this. There’s always been that expectation, the fear that the other shoe is right about to drop – and he doesn’t want to jinx it, but that seems to be absent right now.

 _Just you wait_. The treacherous little dick voice whispers sulkily, but this time he finds it easy to ignore. Which should be setting off a thousand warning bells in his head, but somehow isn’t. He feels fucking giddy. He’s staying, and Cas is going to get better and things are just gonna be fucking okay.

And maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s not waiting for the Bad Thing anymore because they’ve just fucking faced it, kicked it in the nuts and come out the other side. 

_That’s not how—_

“Dean?”

Cas’s voice drags him out of his head, and he realises he’s just been staring into the open fridge gormlessly.

He grabs the milk and gives it a sniff to make sure it’s still fresh, earning a disgusted look from Sam.

“What, you want off pancakes?”

“You can tell if it’s off without sticking your nose right inside the carton, you animal.”

Dean flips him the bird and pours the milk into a bowl, pulling out a stool on his way back to the fridge and gesturing to Cas to sit down. 

“I’m fine standing.” Cas says, but Dean shakes his head, gestures to where Cas is leaning on his stick.

“C’mon dude, you need to rest up, get your strength back.”

Cas rolls his eyes, but does what Dean asks. 

“I can help, if you need it. I remember how to make them.” He offers, wanting to at least feel like he’s doing something useful. He likes having things to do, idle time doesn’t treat him kindly these days.

“Nah it’s fine, you just relax. Let me take care of things.”

Cas decides this isn’t a battle he’s going to win and lets it drop. Instead he just watches Dean potter around, measuring out ingredients with slapdash care – eyeballing it more than following any particular recipe.

“I thought baking was an exact science.” He ventures, as Dean looks appraisingly at the mixing bowl and carelessly dumps another load of flour in.

“Dean doesn’t believe in measuring things.” Sam supplies with a weary air, like this is a well-worn squabble between them.

“I don’t _need_ to.” Dean harrumphs. “If you don’t like how I cook maybe you want to come up here and do it.”

“So, you’ll take his help but not mine?” Cas asks, only half teasing – fighting down the urge to snap at someone. Ashamed to admit to himself that if it was Sam he probably already would have. He’s not been kind to Sam recently, and he knows it. Wishes he could help it. 

Dean brandishes his wooden spoon threateningly at the two of them. “I don’t want either of your help, or any backseat baking.”

He notices Cas yawning and clicks his tongue. He made everyone else coffee, forgot to offer Cas any. Dude’s eyeing up Charlie’s mug wistfully so Dean doesn’t even ask, just steps over to the machine. Sam looks hopefully over, but he must be fucking kidding. Firstly, he’s a big boy, he can get his own coffee, secondly, he’s lucky he’s getting fucking breakfast after insulting Dean’s methods, no way is he going out of his way to make him another drink too.

“I think we’ve got some juice as well.” Dean tells Cas as he hands him the mug, but Cas shakes his head.

“Coffee is fine. Thanks.”

Dean can feel Sam’s puppy eyes boring into the back of his skull but he ignores them, heats up a pan and artfully arranges as much bacon in it as will fit. It’ll be ready before all of the pancakes are done but he can just sling it in the oven to keep warm. Easy.

He gives Cas the first and second pancake. Tries to give him the third as well, even though he’s barely halfway through his first. Dude needs to get the meat back on his bones, and Dean can’t think of a better way than pancakes and bacon.

Charlie is the one who notices Cas’s irritation with the whole proceedings. He doesn’t say anything, or even try and resist too hard, but there’s a tick in the corner of his eye, a slight grimace that Dean’s too busy being in full throttle overbearing caretaker mode to notice. He doesn’t like being babied, so of course it figures that he’d end up with someone with the ferociously overprotective maternal instincts of a bear.

She kicks Dean in the shins, tries to convey the words _let him eat in peace, assface_ , with her expression. And maybe he doesn’t get the exact wording, but Dean gets the gist, flushing slightly and moving on to feeding everyone else. Of course he eats last, despite Sam’s offer to take over the pan for a bit, but that’s just Dean. Although whether it’s because he wants everyone else fed first or because for some reason he has a major distrust of Sam and baking, Charlie isn’t quite sure. Maybe both.

Cas manages maybe a pancake and a half, no bacon and very little syrup. It’s too sweet and too salty. Too much flavour and texture. His appetite is still a lot less than it used to be, and he could probably have been satisfied with just one pancake, but Dean had been insistent. Annoyingly so, but he’d tried very hard not to let it grate on him too much.

He knows this is how Dean shows he cares, it’s just a little much, right now.

*

It’s Charlie who asks the big question. “So, what now?”

And that’s where they all come a little unstuck. What _do_ they do now with no driving force, be it another apocalypse or Dean getting a bit too excited about the prospect of a holiday.

Well, okay. They do have a driving force – help Cas recover, but judging by all the prickly irritation he’s displayed so far, anyone telling him that would be on the receiving end of some, admittedly feeble, violence.

The silence stretches on for a bit and Charlie sighs.

“You guys must have hobbies.”

“Most of them involve deadly weapons.” Dean snorts.

“Well, we could do one of those?” Charlie says tentatively, in a tone that suggests that was definitely not what she had in mind, but she’ll do it if she gets outvoted with only minimal complaining.

“I’ll show you how to juggle knives another time.” Cas deadpans. “But I do have a suggestion.” He pauses, suddenly unsure.

“Go ahead.” Sam reassures.

“I’d uh, like to buy some clothes.” He picks at his baggy top. “Everything’s a little loose, these days.” He looks up to see Sam’s kicked puppy expression, frowns and tries to backpedal guiltily. “I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t looking after me.”

“I should’ve realised, Cas. I’m—”

“You had your hands full. I haven’t made this easy.”

There’s a bitter catch to his tone that he hopes no-one has noticed, but a glance around proves otherwise. He sees Dean grimace, make an aborted little move forward like he wants to lay a reassuring hand on Cas’s arm. Charlie interrupts before he can, and Cas isn’t sure whether he’s relieved or not. His skin is itching and roiling, mouth dry. He still wants Dean’s hand on him though, craves the intimacy of his touch even if the physical sensation of it would probably just make him more uncomfortable.

“Clothes shopping, huh? Dean makes a surprisingly good Gok Wan, don’t you, Dean?” Charlie speaks up before things can get too somber. She’s getting very good at diffusing this sort of miserable tension – and you’d hope so with all the practice. Maybe when this is over she’ll set herself up as a counsellor somewhere far away from the Winchesters – those who’re so by blood _and_ profound bond.

Because hey, they’re family, but sometimes the best place for family is a couple of thousands of miles away.

She’s not a dick, it’s just been a trying few months.

*

“What sort of stuff do you wanna pick up, Cas?” Dean asks idly, passing his plate over to Sam in a very clear statement of _I cooked, you clean_. 

Cas shrugs, suppressing a shudder at the twinge of pain from his back and hoping Dean didn’t notice anything. He doesn’t want Dean to know about that, not now — maybe not ever. Luckily he was otherwise engaged throwing a rolled-up ball of paper at Sam’s retreating back.

“Come on man,” Dean turns his full attention back to Cas, taking the silence as some kind of challenge. “You must have some idea – are we getting you more pyjamas and loungey things, or are you sick to the back teeth of elastic waistbands?”

“A mix would be nice.”

“I suppose we can see when we get there. There are some decent sized thrift stores, but they might not have much in uh, in your size. We’ll have to hit a few probably.”

“We could just go to Walmart. I don’t want to waste everyone’s time dragging them from shop to shop.”

“Hey, there’s always time for you, buddy.” Dean waves his hands awkwardly, like he wants to settle them on Cas but is thinking better of it. “And, uh, I’m not sure Walmart is the best idea. It’ll be full of people and cameras. We’ll stick out there pretty badly.”

“Oh.” Cas says. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe we shouldn’t bother.”

Dean watches Cas curl back in on himself, feels like the worst fucking human being in the world. Dude asks for one thing and you go nah, fuck you.

“No, no. Man, that’s not what I meant. I’m being an ass, I’m sorry. You deserve to have clothes that fit, Cas, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Cas shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, I can suffer the indignity of Sam’s unfeasibly large shirts for another few weeks.”

“I don’t want you to have to.”

“Thank you, Dean.”

*

Dean hands his plate over to Sam, making vague small talk with Cas. Sam takes it, nudges Charlie, who shoots him a look – like what, four entire plates too much work for you – but gets up to help him none the less.

When they’re out of Dean and Cas’s direct line of sight Sam jerks his head towards the corridor and she follows, intrigued, as he shuffles far enough away from the kitchen so as to be out of earshot.

“This is all very clandestine.” She notes, almost laughs at Sam’s sheepish expression.

“It’s nothing that dramatic, just – do you think we should give them some space?”

Now she gets it. It’s the sort of perfectly reasonable question that either Dean or Cas or both would have somehow found completely objectionable.

“I don’t think so, at least not outside the bunker.”

“Oh?” It’s clearly not the answer Sam was expecting. And Jesus, she isn’t sure she has the energy to explain this one. At least Sam is the emotionally open (hahahahahaha) one of the three of them. Trying to explain this to Dean would be excruciating for everyone involved.

She casts around for an easy way of putting it, doesn’t find one and sighs.

“Look, I love Dean, you know I do, but I’ve been living ass to elbow with him, and, frankly, he isn’t in a good place. Or at least not a stable one, anyway. And he’s back and he’s staying, which is obviously good, but that doesn’t automatically make him fine or fix anything.”

Sam is silent for a minute, pensive. 

“You’re saying you think he might... do something?”

“Not on purpose, but look. He said he’s staying for Cas, and that’s great, but you can’t tell me the fact that he was feeling unwanted was the only reason he was gonna leave. Whatever those other reasons are, they’re still there. So I think for the time being it’s worth keeping a close eye on him. On Cas too, I can’t imagine he’s much better.”

Sam grimaces. “Cas is, yeah. He’s doing about as well as you’d expect.”

“Exactly, so it’s down to us to make sure they don’t pull a Dean-Cas.”

“A what now?”

Charlie laughs, see, she’s got so good at defusing emotional situations she’s doing it by force of habit now. “It’s a new thing I’m trying out – something to describe all those stupid noble idiot _throw myself under a bus for someone I love_ moves.”

Sam laughs, stops when Charlie skewers him with A Look.

“What?”

“I’m not sure you get to laugh at that, Mr Trials of Hell.”

“That is totally different. I was trying to save the _world_.”

Charlie makes a noise that leaves no doubt as to her opinion of that justification. 


	4. So Much for a Profound Bond, Asshole

They take the jeep, because it’s there and it’s warded — even if they haven’t had time to get rid of the Colorado wildlife services logo painted on the side. Dean drives, because fuck you all. Sam tries to sit in the front seat and receives a dagger look, backs away with a stupid little grin and Dean knows he won’t even hear the goddamn end of this. He is, therefore, more than a little disappointed when Cas slips into the back with Charlie. 

He shakes off the urge to sulk about it. Really, Winchester, how old are you? It’s just a car journey – so what Cas got in the back and not in the front where he belongs, where you can see him out of the corner of your eye and maybe put a hand on his leg if that’s okay and—

“Are you gonna start the car or what?” Sam asks from the seat next to him.

Dean jerks out of the self-indulgent, mildly pathetic headspace he’d flopped face first into and drives. And if he doesn’t turn the radio on, it’s not because he wants to be able to hear any conversation that Charlie and Cas are having in the back. It’s because sometimes it’s nice to just listen to the rumble of a car engine.

Yeah, right.

Cas doesn’t even talk that much anyway. He seems pretty content to just stare out of the window, and everyone else in the car seems content to let him.

Which is fine, except the silence is sorta starting to grate on Dean. It’s not awkward so much as just empty and pensive – everyone wrapped up in their own little worlds. Which is decidedly not the mood Dean wants to be in. He’s still holding onto that gleeful little kernel of happiness from breakfast and the last thing he wants is silence in which to overthink all of this and start panicking again.

Can’t catch me, bad thoughts.

“Let’s play a game.”

Two loud groans and one ex-angel pretending he hasn’t heard what Dean said.

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with.....................................................”

“No.”

“Sammy you have to wait until I’ve said a letter to guess.”

“Dean, please—”

“C”

“Chevrolet.” Cas guesses almost instantly.

“Motherfucker. Did you read my mind? I thought the whole mind reading angels thing was a myth.”

“You’re very predictable.”

“Guys, tell Cas I’m not predictable!”

There’s a tumbleweed worthy moment of silence.

“I hate you all.” Dean grumbles.

“Is it my turn to guess now?”

“Please don’t encourage him, Cas.” Sam begs. 

Any other time Cas might have been on his side, but right now he’s glad of the distraction. Idle time doesn’t treat him well. He’d been staring out of the window, telling himself he was looking at passing cars, admiring the houses and the sweeping landscape.

And he had, peripherally, but mostly he’d been thinking that there must be someone out there, some back-alley dealer who could get him what he needs. Something to wipe away the itching-craving-boiling need that catches up every time his thoughts slow down enough to let it.

“T”

“Nuh-uh, Cas. Play the game, you’ve gotta say the whole thing.”

“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T.”

“Tree.” Dean barks, hoping to solve Cas’s as quickly as Cas solved his.

“No.”

“Tarmac?”

“No.”

“Trailer?”

“No.”

Sam and Charlie exchange helpless glances. Charlie wonders if they’re going too fast for her to bail, Sam wonders what tape is in the car stereo and whether it’ll be good enough in Dean’s opinion to derail him. He gets his hand slapped away when he tries to find out.

“Man this is tough. Train?”

“No.”

“Can we still see it?”

“No.”

“Ah, fuck, Cas. No fair.”

“They’re very common. I was going easy on you.”

“Not easy enough!”

“Truck?”

“No.”

“Come on dude, a clue. You gotta give me a clue.”

“You swore at it and then overtook it at nearly twice the speed limit.”

“That narrows it down to every single vehicle we’ve passed so far.” Charlie points out.

“What, you guys suggesting I’m a bad driver?”

“TRACTOR!” Sam yells, unable to bear it any longer. “IT’S A TRACTOR, YOU IDIOT!”

Dean looks imploringly at Cas through the rear-view mirror – like _c’mon, I don’t care if he’s right, tell him he’s wrong. We have a profound bond, don’t let me down here, Cas._ Cas makes eye contact and Dean thinks he’s gonna do it – and then the little shit smirks and Dean knows he’s fucked. Whether Sam was actually right or not, the answer is definitely now tractor.

“Correct.”

“MOTHERFUCKER.” Dean hits the steering wheel in frustration.

“This is like one of those really awkward episodes of the Newlywed Game where one of them gets all the answers and the other one is like, um, his favourite colour? Colours, I’ve heard of them, yeah. He likes colours.”

“Shut up, Charlie.” Dean grumbles. “Our love is “profound”.” He makes air quotes around the word.

“I dunno, Sam and Cas do have chemistry, you can’t deny it.”

“I will turn this car around.”

“Okay, dad.” She rolls her eyes affectionately.

“I spy with my little eye—”

“It’s not your turn, Dean.” Sam interrupts.

“Well you were taking too long, Sammy.”

“SO.” Charlie says with force, attempting to change the topic before they can start another round of this godawful game. “Cas, where are we going - Walmart, Gap, some fancy high-end boutique none of the rest of us have heard of?”

“Fun as it sounds to go to terrorise some high fashion employees with you three sartorial disgraces—” there’s a chorus of mocking jeers at his use of such a fancy term, “—in tow, I think we’ll be sticking to thrift stores for now.”

“First of all how dare you—” Charlie starts, but Dean interrupts her.

“Hey, Cas. Look, I promise man, when you’re better, back y’know, to yourself – I’m gonna take you somewhere real nice. One of them fancy little boutiques where they follow people like me around to make sure I ain’t stealing shit. Get you something properly special. Something yours.”

Charlie and Sam, having suddenly dropped to the emotional maturity of a pair of toddlers, make mock kissy faces at each other.

“Thanks, that sounds nice.” Cas says. And he means it sincerely, he does. It’s a nice thing to say, thoughtful of Dean to offer. Reassuring too, that he’s making plans for the fairly distant future.

It has nothing to do with the sudden feeling of unease that’s swelling in Cas’s bones.

He’s okay.

This is okay.

*

They lose Charlie the moment they enter the shop. Well, lose is a strong word. Cas could hazard a guess that she’s launched herself to the back where they keep the nerdy stuff — DVDs and videotapes, old games and weird little children’s toys.

Everything is sorted by colour, which makes it a frustrating experience. All Cas wants to do is rifle through the probably very small section of clothes suitable for someone as emaciated as he is and move on. Instead he has to paw through every single rack while Dean does the same on the side opposite him and Sam loiters near the shoes, noticeably close enough to be useful in case anything happens.

In the bunker he might have found this protectiveness cloying. Out here he welcomes it. The shop is quiet and empty – early morning on a weekday – but he still feels nerves roiling in his stomach. Anyone could be here, approach him. Do anything. He’d be too weak to stop it, too weak to escape.

Stop it.

He knows the more he thinks about the fear the worse it gets. Even thinking about how angry it makes him, that he’s been reduced to this cowering grateful little thing nudges him back towards panic. Back towards thoughts of helplessness.

Focus on the clothes, on Sam’s expression as he picks up a particularly improbably heeled shoe, on Dean’s snort of laughter as he picks out the ugliest thing he can find and brings it over.

“Hey, Cas. Found you the perfect shirt.”

It’s yellow with brown sleeves, glittery letters – homemade by the looks of things – spelling out ‘bite me’ across the chest. It is hideously ugly, but it’s also about the right size, so Cas takes it off Dean to spite him.

“Lovely, thank you.”

“You know I was kidding, right? My taste isn’t that bad.”

“Mhmm.”

“Please don’t buy the shirt, Cas.”

“I like it.”

“No, you don’t. Please don’t?”

Sam’s making no effort whatsoever to muffle his laughter, earning them curious glances from the kid behind the till. 

Cas refuses to put Dean out of his misery, shrugs and turns back to the rack, rifling through the green section. It’s mostly camo, and mostly for people with considerably more meat on their bones than Cas has, but he might strike lucky so he keeps trying.

Dean doesn’t pick out any more ridiculous shirts, clearly worried that Cas actually will buy and wear them, but he does bring over some other stuff which Cas glances over perfunctorily before adding to the pile. He’s got three t-shirts, a couple of button downs, two pairs of shorts and a pair of jogging pants. Much more than he expected to find.

He tries them all on and is satisfied with the fit for everything apart from Dean’s monstrous shirt. It’s too small, pinches under his armpits. He reluctantly tells Dean as much when he shuffles out, is met with mock disappointment.

“Oh no, what a terrible shame. However will we cope without that beautiful shirt.” He pauses for dramatic effect, and then pulls something else out from behind his back. “Good job I found this for you instead.”

It’s a jumper, deep blue in colour and soft to the touch, and looks a perfect fit for the Cas of 6 months ago. 

“Dean, that’s huge.”

“Yeah, I mean, not for now, but y’know.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Don’t you like it?”

Dean has an eye for style, one he occasionally lets himself indulge, and he’s clearly excited that he found this for Cas. Cas though, can’t summon up any natural enthusiasm, papers it over with fake cheer instead.

“No, it’s. It’s lovely.”

Dean buys it, beams back at him and then takes the little pile. 

“We’ll go get these. Sam, you go drag Charlie away from whatever depths of VHS hell she’s buried herself in and meet us by the door.”

Cas allows Dean to lead him to the till, stands behind him and tries not to make eye contact with the cashier as she rings up their items and folds them neatly into a bag. She accidentally drops the change on the counter, and as Dean’s fumbling to pick it up she fixes Cas in a direct gaze, makes sure he sees her slip something into the bag – something small and white and rectangle shaped. 

“These for you?” She asks him in a cheery voice, holds the bag past Dean — still struggling to pick quarters up off the mystifying slippery counter, makes sure Cas takes it. 

He does, unable to repress a shudder as her fingers brush his.

Who is she, what is it, what’s happening?

Fear starts to prick at him again, and he’s walking away from Dean without even consciously realising it, to Charlie and Sam.

“Sam, she put something, I don’t know, I—”

“Hey, calm down, it’s okay. Want me to check?”

He nods, hating himself for being so pathetic. It was about the same size as the little plastic bags he used to use, and he wants he needs he—

“It’s a, shit, Cas. It’s a business card.”

“Who for?” He croaks out, visions of needles and dealers coming unprompted.

“The KCSDV.”

Cas laughs as Sam fumbles to hide the business card before Dean can come over and see it, but it’s too late, and Cas is still laughing, verging on hysterical now.

Dean holds out his hand and Sam has no choice but to offer it, watch Dean’s smile turn in on itself into something on the border between rage and self-disgust.

It’s a long, tense drive back to the bunker.


	5. What a Hill to Die On

Dean heads straight for the kitchen, grabs a knife and starts chopping vegetables. He doesn’t bother sharpening the knife, even though it’s nearly blunt. He needs to do something with his hands, something that requires a bit of force. 

The carrots are good for that, less so the onions but that’s okay because cutting onions with a blunt knife is an easy road to physical discomfort, and therefore distraction. Keep running and it won’t catch up. Keep thinking about how irritated your eyes are and you don’t have to see Cas, laughing hysterically, mouth gaping open and eyes glazed. 

He’d looked like a different Cas, there. One Dean left behind in 2014, in another life. One that Dean thought was dead but maybe was just biding his time, waiting to slip between the cracks in dimensions and into his Cas, taking him over inch by inch until there’s nothing real left. Until he’s just a fucked-out junkie shell, chasing sensation because no one bothered to teach him how to deal with his emotions, so he decided to exorcise them instead.

And that’s not even getting to why Cas was laughing like that.

Dean only realises there’s smoke coming from the pan he’s been browning onions in when someone gently takes his hand away from the handle, moves it off the gas.

Cas.

Dean wishes it wasn’t him. That Sam or Charlie had come instead. He looks like himself again, his new self, tired and drawn and scrawny, but Dean still almost can’t bear to look at him. It summons up guilt, thick, choking, horrified guilt.

“Dean?”

He doesn’t want to reply. Maybe if he just pretends he hasn’t noticed Cas, he’ll go away.

“Dean? Are you okay?” Cas reaches out and touches his hand, and that’s Dean fucked.

“I’m sorry, Cas.”

“I’m sure we have more onions.”

There’s a particular look in Cas’s eye when Dean meets it, and Dean knows that he’s being given an out – he can take the joke and that’ll be the end of it. 

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Cas shrugs, strokes his fingers over the knuckles of Dean’s right hand. Dean takes it as invitation, grasps on tight. Cas grimaces but doesn’t let go, so that’s something. That’s everything.

“She thought I’d done this to you. She thought I was knocking you about, hurting you.”   
  
Cas shrugs, lopsided. It looks so unaffectedly casual that it can’t possibly be.

“But you aren’t, so it’s fine.”

“But I still let it happen.”

This isn’t the same argument they were having before, this isn’t Dean winding himself up to leave for Cas’s own good. This is just Dean trying to shoulder his fair portion of blame. Dean knows that, but he isn’t sure whether Cas does, not until he lets out a gentle hmm, asks ponderously.

“Did you? Did you see him lure me away and stand and let it happen, shrug your shoulders and decide it wasn’t worth the effort trying to find me?”

“No, but—”

“Then it’s not your fault.”

“Cas, you know—”

“This wasn’t an opportunistic crime.” Cas’s tone sharpens. “It was meticulous, even by angelic standards. Apocalypses have been less carefully considered. If you’d been with me on that day he would have waited until you weren’t. He had all the time between the day I became human and the day I died to take me. Eventually I would have been on my own and off my guard – I didn’t think I had anything to be afraid of, then.”

“You don’t have anything to be afraid of now.” Dean’s grip on Cas’s hand tightens. He knows he failed him, even if Cas won’t admit it. He’s got more culpability for this mess than just not being there to stop it, no matter what Cas’s reasoning. He could’ve been better in the aftermath – held together better, fought harder, figured it out faster. 

He won’t let that happen again, any of it.

Cas is looking at him with a soft, appraising look. Dean’s seen it a few times since he got back, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t understand it, and that jars. He’s used to being able to read Cas’s emotions at a glance – sure he might not be able to parse out the underlying causes, but he could always tell what Cas was feeling.

This look, this unfathomable look, he can feel the weight of it and it makes him nervous, makes him babble.

“I know there’re still bad things. I’m not saying there’s nothing for you to fear ever again. But not that, okay. Fucker’s chained up in the basement and I ain't letting him free.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah, buddy.”

“I’d like to stop talking about this now, please.” He says it like a gentle request, like he’d rather not, but if Dean wants to he’ll just carry on.   
  
And Dean wants to carry on, wants to repeat it until Cas believes him. But he respects Cas’s wishes, backs off, backs down. He gets the sense that this is more cathartic for him than it is for Cas. 

“Yeah, of course.” But he trails off there, head too full of big, personal, apocalyptic things to dredge up any small talk or casual conversation. He’s stuck on that last thought, loop of fucking hell Winchester, Cas is supposed to be the one who needs looking after, soothing. You’re supposed to be making sure he’s okay, not using him to straighten out the fucked-up tangles in your own snarling brain.

“What were you making?” Cas asks.

Dean snorts, doesn’t give the honest answer of a distraction. Says the first thing that pops into mind instead. “Stew.”

“You don’t have a good track record with stew.” Cas notes and Dean makes a big show of being mock annoyed, letting go of Cas and throwing his hands up in the air. 

“Hey, man. That is not cool. Firstly, these onions are chargrilled, not burned.”

“Not a lot of recipes call for chargrilled onions.”

“How would you know, you’ve cooked like one thing in your life ever and it didn’t even contain any meat.”

“Why is that relevant?”

“If it doesn’t contain meat it isn’t food.”

“So pancakes aren’t food?”

“No, pancakes are like, baking, I dunno.”

“So baking doesn’t count as cooking?”

“Jesus, I don’t know, Cas. I’m not a goddamn chef.”

“You made up this arbitrary rule, you should be able to defend it.”

Dean laughs, shakes his head ruefully and turns off the gas lest something else catch fire. Speaking of which, when he’s done being bullied by Cas, he needs to check the fire alarm because that definitely should have gone off by now.

“Fuck you, Cas. Fuck you.” Cas grins back at him, and it feels like a victory for them both.

*

It’s so easy to slip back into this, Cas thinks, idle banter and casual teasing. It’s everything else that comes hard. Maybe they just need time, to ease back into their familiar pattern. It could be worse, so much worse. They have this to fall back on, it’s not all angst and hand wringing and awkward silences.

They’ve got somewhere to grow from. That’s good enough


	6. Dean’s Reign of Kitchen Terror Continues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild spoiler warnings for the 1980 film Airplane - but it’s only spoiled in so much as I’ve given away the punchlines to a few of the jokes so really by reading this fic and then watching the film you’re living the Cas experience.

“So, do Charlie and Sam not care whether I live or die, now?” Dean asks.  
  
Cas shrugs. “I only came in here to tell you to stop being such an antisocial assbutt.”

“And there I was thinking you sensed I was in danger and came running to rescue me from the flames.”

“You’re going to have to do your own rescuing for the time being. Now are you coming to join us or are there more vegetables that need reducing to charcoal?”

“Okay, that was uncalled for.” Dean pouts, following Cas out of the room. He wants to offer his arm or some other kind of support, but Cas seems to be making speedy enough progress without him.

And anyway, Cas has always been a prickly sonofabitch and Dean reckons he’d be as likely to get a thwack around the face with that old man walking stick as he would a thanks. 

“It lives!” Charlie yells, pelting Dean with a cushion as he walks through the door.

“I was preparing your dinner for tonight, you ungrateful cow.”

Cas snorts, and Charlie zeroes in on him.

“What was he really doing? Spill.”

“How long is it since you changed the batteries in your smoke alarm?” Cas asks.

Sam finally looks up from the Netflix menu screen.  
  
“What did he do?”

Dean throws himself down on the edge of the unoccupied sofa. He’s acutely aware that Cas is still standing, so he leaves plenty of room. Enough that Can choose whether he sits next to Dean or on the other edge. If it were up to Dean, he’d be sitting so close he was practically in Cas’s goddamn lap, but he’s decided that it isn’t – that they’re gonna do this whole thing at Cas’s pace no matter how ready Dean is to dive back in. 

Call this his penance, because heh, it’s easy enough for Cas to say none of the blame for this lies with Dean, it’s a whole lot harder for that message to penetrate.

Dean’s mental gymnastics are for nought anyway, as Cas decides he’d rather stay standing. Which is fine, Dean thinks, swallowing down the, _you sure you don’t wanna sit down?_ Dude knows his own mind, he can stand if he wants to. 

Fuck, all this second-guessing is exhausting.

“Dean tried to set the kitchen on fire.” Cas answers, when it becomes clear that Dean isn’t going to fill Sam in.

“I’m being unfairly attacked here.” Dean makes a token effort at defending himself, but, as usual, no one fucking listens. Bastards.

“So, if Dean can’t be trusted in the kitchen anymore, who’s making lunch?” Sam asks, cutting right through to the important things.

And then realising, as everyone turns to look at him, that by asking the question he might just have volunteered.

“Nuh-uh. No way. Last time I dared cook something in that fucking kitchen I had to deal with two weeks of Mr Passive Aggressive loudly moving plates and complaining about out of place pans.”  
  
“You rearranged everything!”

“I put away the three things I used, you control freak.”  
  
“Ahem.” Cas tries to interrupt, but neither Dean not Sam appear to be in the room anymore, having descended into some kind of incomprehensible rap battle of old family grievances.

“Remember Salt Lake City, Sam?”

“Bullshit, that had nothing to do with me.”  
  
“And say I don’t believe you?”

“I can’t believe you have the fucking balls to even mention that considering the Red Star Motel.”

“Go fuck yourself, Peoria-boy.”

Sam goes white. “You promised—“ He snaps his teeth together. “Okay, if we’re going down that road, how about Provincetown?”

Charlie looks at Cas ruefully. “Brothers.”

“When my brothers fought, it was a little bit more... apocalyptic.”

Charlie laughs. “Okay, point taken. So, you stopped yours by throwing one of them in a hell-cage, right? What do you suggest we do here?”  
  
“Actually we threw them both in a hell-cage and left them to beat each other up for the rest of eternity.”

Charlie nods slowly. “We don’t have a hell-cage here, but I doubt they’d notice if we locked the door and left them to it.”

“True, but the TV is in here.”  
  
Charlie clicks her tongue. “Good point. What do you think, fire alarm, fake demon sighting? There must be a way to lure them away.”

“Or we could just put on a film and turn up the volume so we can’t hear them?”

“I like your thinking. You’ve clearly suffered this before.”

“Hmm. I used to just” he clicks his fingers, “away, but unfortunately now I’m grounded, new coping mechanisms have had to be found.”  
  
The bitterness with which he says the word grounded doesn’t escape Charlie’s notice and she gets up, comes to stand over by Cas so they can talk in an undertone.

“The whole grounded thing—”

Cas knows what she wants to say, saves her the effort of finding a delicate way to phrase it.

“How did I find it? I found it miserable and cloying, but ultimately worth it. I lost a huge part of my identity, a sense of selfhood I’ve had for millennia. If I’d had a choice I would have stayed an angel – but I didn’t. It was the only way that I could cure Dean, and I had to make that sacrifice – both for him and for the rest of this fleeting world I’ve come to cherish so dearly.”

It sounds like a spiel, like something he’s memorised. Charlie can’t help probing.

“You used the past tense. Does that mean—”

“I misspoke.” Cas evades cleanly, just this side of sharp enough that Charlie knows to let it lie.

“I know you won’t talk about this stuff with Dean, ‘cause he’ll just blame himself—”

“But you’re here if I need to ‘get it off my chest’.” She can hear the air quotes, even if he doesn’t make them. “Thank you.”

Charlie takes the hint, doesn’t try and press him. There’s something in his expression that she doesn’t like, but if he’s anything like Dean – and guessing as that’s where he learned all his emotional cues and half assed coping mechanisms he will be – pushing him now will just make him defensive and cruel in an effort to drive her away before she can get too deep. 

Long game, Charlie. Long game.

She needs less exhausting friends.

“So,” she says, flipping through the Netflix menu. “Airplane?”

“Sure.” Cas agrees.

It’s an old film, and he knows the plot, but that matters less with comedy. Getting a film infodumped into your head tends to ruin thrillers and dramas because you know the narrative twists and turns, but jokes don’t really translate in the same way. He knows that in this film there’s a gag about an autopilot, and a lot based on misunderstandings of language – that doesn’t mean he finds that information funny when it’s detached from its proper context.

He stretches out both of his legs gently, careful not to put too much strain on them. He’s tired and wants to sit down, but he knows when he does the knifelike pins and needles will come back in full force. They seem to calm down a bit when he’s moving, but he knows that’s just hoarding extra pain for later. It’s always worse when he stops – like it saves itself up – and, in this state especially, he always has to stop, sooner rather than later. 

It’d probably be easier if he could stop thinking about it all the goddamn time. That’s the problem with these kinds of ridiculous bodily failings, though. They demand your attention, and once they have it, they double down on the nightmare with no escape but death.

They also, apparently, drag out self-indulgently maudlin tendencies you thought you’d left behind you, Cas admonishes himself. The apocalypse was a long time ago, and he honestly assumed by now he’d be better equipped to deal with the surges and slumps of human emotion and suffering. That he wouldn’t still be stuck on the Bukowski - as Dean refered to it - method of coping with his mortal existence. But, like a lot of things, that was before, and now he’s not sure whether he’s still here because he wants to be, or because it’d probably hurt more to just lie down and accept his fate than it would to keep shuffling onwards.

A slight exaggeration, perhaps. The despair hasn’t dug in too deep as to be all consuming, he still has things to live for.

He has a comedy to watch, for instance.

Cas sits down next to Dean, close but not touching. He doesn’t want to get jolted if Dean decides their verbal battling isn’t enough and he feels the need to jump over the table and throttle Sam.

*

Dean feels the sofa sink a little as Cas sits down. He notices with some glee that Cas isn’t curled up on the other arm, he’s right next to Dean – close but not quite touching. It’s absurd that something so small feels like a victory, but it does, and it throws Dean out of his stride. He sputters to a halt.  
  
Sam nods smugly at him, taking that as a victory. Dean rolls his eyes and throws a casual middle finger salute. Like _fuck you, I won’t justify that with a response, I win, nanananananasuckit_. It’s a quick way to end this, both of them feeling like they’ve come out on top. A bit of a cop out for Dean, ‘cause he realises this, but he’s got more important things to think about now. 

Like the fact that he’s 13 again and the object of his overwhelming love, desire, etcetcetc, is sitting mere inches away.

He’s so far gone down the 13-year-old girl route that he knows there’s no turning back now. Colour him pathetic. Also colour him too enamoured to goddamn care.

The familiar opening scenes of Airplane appear on the tv screen and he crows.

“This is a fucking classic, Cas. You’ll love it.”

And Cas does – a lot more than he expected. Old film or not, the jokes don’t feel “dated” like he’d been warned old films might. Then again, that could have something to do with Cas himself being older than the genesis of acting.

The laughs come thick and fast, but that’s not what Cas enjoys the most. It is, predictably – because he’s gone from being a towering warrior who scorches the earth he walks on, to being an emotional sap – Dean. Dean who sits next to him, almost touching and being so, so careful not to overstep the boundary Cas set. Who keeps starting to mouth along to the punchlines, “it’s a big building with people inside, but that’s not important right now.”, “and don’t call me Shirley”, who laughs a moment too quickly for most of the jokes – then realises what he’s doing and looks at Cas with a lopsided grin, tries to reign himself back in and only manages it until the next big laugh. 

Cas feels himself approaching contentment, blooming into actual happiness when Sam finally snaps and launches a pillow at Dean.

“For the love of god, would you SHUT UP?!”  
  
To which Dean, of course, just smirks and graduates from whispering to saying the lines out loud. 

Cas breathes out a long, whistling sigh, and nudges his leg an inch to the left.  
  
Dean breaks off mid-sentence, looks at him and grins from ear to ear, but still doesn’t push it further. He looks so grateful for that small moment of contact that Cas – who’d planned to just nudge him and withdraw – decides to leave his leg there. Fuck it, the pins and needles are worth this.

*

“Sam, Sam!” Charlie whispers, lobbing a balled-up lump of pocket lint and receipts at him to get his attention away from Ted’s onscreen war flashbacks. 

“What?” He stage whispers back, somehow retaining all the volume of his normal voice. How he hasn’t been killed on a hunt, Charlie doesn’t know.

Charlie rolls her eyes, points at Dean and Cas. They’re both fast asleep – which fair enough for Cas, it’s been a stressful day and he exerted himself more than he has for a while, but Dean _“I only need three hours of sleep a night how dare you suggest otherwise”_ Winchester has no damn excuse.

It’s all kind of tame really, especially compared to some of the horribly brain-scarringly compromising situations Sam’s caught them in before, kind of sweet even. Dean has his head pillowed on Cas’s shoulder – a recipe for a cricked neck, but Sam guesses Dean won’t mind that in the slightest. Cas looks a little more comfortable, lying with his head propped back against a cushion, mouth open but somehow not snoring. He’s got one hand in his lap, and the other fisted in Dean’s shirt, like he’s making sure he won’t pull away.  
  
Sam whips out his camera and snaps a handful of pictures.

“For blackmail.” He tells Charlie.

“Yeah.” She says, with one raised eyebrow. She knows him better than that.

He shrugs, mumbles like the emotionally constipated Winchester he is. He’s better than Dean, doesn’t mean he’s anything approaching normal, healthy people levels.

“It might help.” He says. “Seeing something like this – easy and intimate – that it’s still possible. If things get rough, y’know.”

“You’re a good brother.”

He smiles wryly. “I learned from the best.”

She mock faints. “A Winchester who knows how to take a compliment. Doth mine ears deceive me?”

“Why do we even keep you around?”

“For my charm and wit and also because I’m about to make you lunch.”

“Rather you than me.” Sam casts a rapid glance at angelically sleeping Dean.

“I’m only his _honorary_ little sister, so I think he’s probably less likely to hamstring me for moving his stuff.”

“Only probably?”

She shrugs. “I’m hungry, I’ll take the risk.”

*

Sam idly flicks through the Netflix menu while she’s gone. He’s tempted to go for something with a loud jump scare opening, just to startle Dean awake, but he’s not as much of a dick as his brother is, so he restrains himself.

He settles on Planet Earth, allows David Attenborough’s voice to wash over him as he half pays attention to stunning vistas and landscapes and animals and stuff, but mostly just wonders how long Charlie’s gonna be with that lunch because he’s so hungry that the berries that bird is chowing down on are starting to look awfully appetising. 

When Charlie eventually comes back into the room it’s with a plate of something that looks disappointingly like sandwiches. 

“I volunteered to make lunch, I never said anything about cooking it.” She says at Sam’s rueful expression, handing him a plate piled high with sandwiches and potato chips.

“What’s um, in it?” He can’t see an awful lot of stuff – mostly it looks like—

“Chips and butter.”

“That sounds, um. Filling.”

She laughs and reveals the plate she’s holding behind her back, swaps it out with Sam’s. 

“Don’t worry, the nightmare sandwich is for me. I made you ham and about fifteen different kinds of salad vegetable.”

To say a tear comes to Sam’s eye would be an exaggeration, but only a slight one. 

“Thanks Charlie.”

She waves him off. “You’re in serious need of a supply run, though. It’s a fifteen-vegetable salad for a reason, and that’s because that was the only way I could get together enough edible food for one meal.”

She decides not to comment on the fact that Sam – because it must be Sam – keeps 6 different kinds of mixed salad bags in the fridge. Let health weirdos be health weirdos.

“I uh, didn’t like leaving Cas on his own, so food shopping got a bit tricky. And I mean, it’s not like you can get a Walmart delivery to your secret bunker.”

“It worked for Torchwood.”

“I haven’t seen Torchwood, but I’m pretty sure most of them are dead.”

“From totally un-food delivery related circumstances.”

“You never know, butterfly effect.”

“Okay wiseass. You know this means I’m gonna force you to watch it now, right?”  
  
Sam chucks the remote at her. “Have at it.”

“Nah, not yet. I need to indoctrinaterd sleeping beauties over there too. You and me, we’re gonna watch animals eat each other’s faces off while we have our sandwiches, and then we’re gonna buy the shit out of some groceries.”

“What happened to not leaving Dean and Cas here on their own?”

“I am eating a chips and butter sandwich that I have had to pick the mould off of. If they fight, they fight. Besides, look at them, they’re dead to the world, no way they’re waking up anytime soon.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean chips in the American sense as I am, haphazardly and somewhat ineffectually, trying to keep the un-American language to a minimum.
> 
> A chip sandwich (chip butty) in the UK sense is a glorious thing and I can 100% recommend it as a dirty quarantine cba-to-make-actual-people-food dinner.


	7. We Revisit Dean’s Multiple Canine Related Traumas

Cas wakes up slowly, strands of dream still clinging to him, reluctant to release him to the waking world. He can’t remember what he was dreaming about, but it was relatively pleasant, and that feeling lingers on.

There’s a weight resting on his shoulder and he can feel Dean’s breathing, slow and steady. They must have fallen asleep on the sofa together. He reaches over to brush his fingers through Dean’s hair and his back twinges in pain.

And just like that, the peace is gone, and the itching, scraping, burning is back.

Every sensation is too much, his clothes, Dean’s weight on him, even the fabric of the sofa under his arm. He lifts Dean’s head off his shoulder, wincing as the sudden lack of pressure causes an electric spasm. He settles himself on one of the two armchairs – it’s not much better, but the faux leather is slightly more pleasant, smooth to the touch and cold – and clicks the ‘next’ button on the remote, content to carry on with whatever Sam and Charlie were watching before they left the room.

He’s not really watching it, anyway, just wants something to listen to as he curls up into a ball and tries to focus on the narrator’s voice to the exclusion of all else.

He can feel something wet on his shoulder – drool, he thinks – and gross and annoying as it might be that he can’t stop focussing on it, he tells himself it’s a good thing, that it means something important. It means Dean was there long enough to dribble on him, that he didn’t wake up and lash out at the first sign of contact. It’s progress, even if he did have to escape the moment he woke up.

Baby steps.

He sighs, forces the thought away. It’s too close to other things, and he just wants his mind to stop whirring so he can go back to sleep.

*

Dean wakes when Cas gets up, suddenly cold. He reaches out with his eyes closed to drag Cas back to bed – then realises what he’s doing and recoils back, eyes snapping open. Cas doesn’t even seem to have noticed, which is good, but still. Fucking hell, Dean. You gotta be careful.

It sounds so stupid, but for a few seconds there he’d forgotten about all of the bullshit. Thought that things were still normal, still okay.

He groans, stretches out on his back across the length of the sofa, pillows his head on his interlaced hands and checks out what Cas is putting on. Some natural world bullshit.

“Hey, uh, Cas, buddy?” He asks, after a few minutes.

It takes Cas a while to reply – long enough that Dean wonders if he’s drifted off to sleep, but eventually he gets a reply.

“What?” Blunt, but Dean’ll take it.

“Do you, uh, mind if we put something else on. This kinda gives me the heebies.”

That gets Cas’s attention, he unfolds from his ball, one eye open like a particularly ornery cat.

“Animal violence makes you feel squeamish?” And now the please leave me alone vibe is gone and he’s all lets dig a bit deeper into this. Dean shouldn’t have said anything, he’s never gonna live this fucking down.

“It’s just, y’know...” He trails off lamely, hoping Cas will let him get away with it. Of course he doesn’t, though.

“No, I don’t know. What do you find so uncomfortable about watching animals hunt down their prey, tear into the still living flesh—”

“It brings back memories, okay.”

Cas instantly stops teasing, looks concerned.

“What kind of memories?”

_Crowley twists the thick leather leash in his hand, jolts it viciously a couple of times. The animal – something between a dog and a bear, bigger and nastier than any hellhound Dean has ever seen – snarls. Blood stains its teeth, dripping down its muzzle and onto snow which melts with a sulphurous fizzle._

_“Your dog’s making a mess.” Dean sniffs, itching at the mark on his arm. Crowley promised him blood and so far the only blood has come out of that mongrel’s mouth._

_“Your dog, actually.”_

_“I don’t want a dog.”_

_“Tough.” Crowley sneers. “I bred you this one specially, and you’ll be grateful.”_

_“What do I need a damn dog for?”_

_“For hunting.”_

_The mark flares up on Dean’s arm, spurting out a load of happy endorphins at the prospect. He licks his lips in anticipation, holds out his hand for the leash._

_“Whaddo I do?”_

_Crowley wraps the leather around Dean’s hand, touch lingering a second too long. It sparks all kinds of interesting feelings in Dean’s gut, some kind of mash between a desire to throw him down on the floor and fuck him, and a desire to tear him to pieces, limb by limb. Sex and violence have become pretty much one and the same to Dean, recently._

_Crowley smirks at Dean, like he knows what he’s thinking. Then he leans down, whispers something in the dog’s ear._

_It lunges forwards, half dragging Dean along until he starts to run._

“Dean?”

_Footsteps pounding, adrenaline roaring, the hellhound howling._

“Dean?”

_A man screaming, backing away, fear ripe and rank in the air. His leg is bleeding everywhere, bones shattered and flesh hanging off._

“Dean!?”

_Dean inhales deep, the smell of blood and viscera and terror singing to him. He kicks the dog out of the way, laughing as it yelps, picks the man up by the neck and –_

“DEAN!” A hand on his shoulder grounds him and he opens his eyes, back in present day. “Are you okay?” Cas asks, real concern in his eyes.

“Yeah, I just. Vivid memory, y’know.”

Cas lets go of his shoulder, and Dean forces himself not to mourn the loss of contact. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Dean grimaces, knowing it’s too late to pretend his newfound hatred of nature documentaries is just down to a weak stomach.

“Told you I was squeamish.”

“I thought you were just trying to get out of watching something boring.”

Dean snorts. “Sounds like me, but, ah. Not quite. You said you didn’t want to know about what I did under the mark, unless I wanted to tell you.”

“Oh.”  
  
“Yeah, well. Crowley gave me a hellhound. Didn’t last very long, I um, didn’t like to share. But it was around long enough to take some already unpleasant memories and make them worse, if you catch my drift.”

Cas grimaces. “You were killed by a hellhound. I’d forgotten, it seems so long ago.”

“That was like a hundred deaths ago, who’s keeping track.” Dean shrugs. “But yeah, I’ve managed to end up with double hellhound trauma, one from being dragged to hell and the other from doing it to other people. Go me.”

“I’m sorry, Dean, I—”

“You didn’t know, it’s cool. But now you do. So yeah.”

Cas nods, returns to his seat and flicks the TV back to the menu screen.

“Anything else we should steer clear of?”

Dean nearly says _Narcos_ , bites his tongue. He ain’t quite ready to make that joke, and he doubts Cas is ready to hear it.

He laughs, and Cas looks at him with that _what the fuck is the matter with you now_ quirk of his eyebrow.

“Between the two of us we’ve pretty much got the trigger warning spectrum covered. I’d be amazed if there’s more than a dozen goddamn things we can watch.”

Cas snorts. “There must be some damage we don’t have.”

“I’m sure whatever we’re missing, Sam and Charlie will have covered.”

“I think you’re being unfair to Charlie, lumping her in with us.”

“Hey dude, everyone has their issues. Besides, doesn’t have to be trauma. Last time I tried to watch a hacker film with her she called the TV a fucking moron and stormed off.”

Cas smiles, says something else, but suddenly Dean’s distracted, doesn’t catch it.

“Hey, uh. Where are Charlie and Sam?”

Cas shrugs, and Dean stands up sharply, heart starting to beat faster again. He darts out of the living room, into the corridor.

“Guys?!” He yells, gets no response. He’s not panicking, he’s not panicking, he’s not—

A gentle touch to his arm brings him back into the room. It’s the second time in five minutes Cas has used his touch to ground Dean, and it makes him brave. He places his hand over it, tentatively, so Cas can draw away if he wants. He needs that reassuring touch, Cas’s skin beneath his.

“They haven’t been taken, Dean.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just call them.”

Dean forces his shoulders to relax from their tense position, fishes his cell out his pocket and phones Sam.

He answers after two rings.

“Dean?”

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah? We’re fine.”

“Charlie’s with you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He hangs up.

Dean lets go of Cas’s hand, embarrassed. 

“Sorry, overreacted.” He mumbles. It’s easier to speak in fragments than full sentences. 

Cas leaves his hand where it is, and Dean fights the itch to touch him again.

“You’re allowed to be worried.”

Dean snorts. “That wasn’t worry. That was panic.”

Cas sighs, taps Dean on the cheek to make him look up, make eye contact.

“It’s a reasonable reaction, considering.”

“Considering I’m a fucking mess.”

“Considering what happened last time someone left this bunker without leaving you a note.”

“You’re saying it’s okay if I freak out every time someone leaves my sight?”

“You need to give yourself time.”

An irritated edge creeps into Cas’s voice, and of course that only adds to Dean’s guilty shit-heap. Guilt piled on top of guilt smothered in fucking layers of the stuff.  
  
Dean wants to snort, shrug it off and tell Cas that he should be the one who needs emotional support right now. He doesn’t though, because he’s starting to suspect, this little nagging feeling, that for all of his good intentions in saying something like that, he’s still somehow making it about himself, and not Cas. Cas is the one who’s been hurt here, Dean’s just the one who’s letting everything get to him, again, as fucking usual.

So, instead, he doesn’t say anything.

Cas lets the silence go on for a beat, and then he sighs, changes the subject.

“So, where actually are they?” He asks, knowing full well that Dean has no idea.

Dean shrugs. “I dunno.”

“That worried and you didn’t even ask.” Cas laughs, which hurts his back, but it’s worth it because Dean gets that blustery annoyed little look on his face, splutters indignantly.

“I was annoyed, okay! It was a dick move.”

Cas’s grin is splitting his face now, and Dean knows he’s being wound up on purpose. He rolls with it, plays up to it and waves his hands dramatically.

“And now my trauma is amusing to you, apparently.”

“Yes.”

“Betrayed even by my closest ally.” Dean holds his hand over his heart, mock wounded. 

Cas doesn’t say anything, just grins back at Dean. That fluttering little feeling of happiness is starting up in his chest again, and he doesn’t have the strength to squash it this time, even with the voice in his head whispering: _It’s going to end badly, you know it is._

Maybe, but right now, this is good. 

“What?” Dean says, blushing, and Cas realises that he’s been staring dopily at him for even longer than usual. He doesn’t know how to describe it to Dean, not properly, not in a way he’d understand, so instead he settles for something simple.

“This is nice.”  
  
Dean grins back. “Yeah, it is.” And then he bursts out laughing. “What are we, 12-year-old girls?”

“You’ve always been one at heart.”

“This is bullying and I’m going to report you to the ASPCC.”

Cas snorts. “No, it’s affectionate teasing. Now, can we please sit back down before my legs fall off.”

Dean winces. “Shit, I’m sorry man, I didn’t think.”  
  
“I’m fine, Dean. I just want to sit down.” 


	8. Kitchen Coup

Dean scrolls through the Netflix menu what must be three or four times before Cas decides he’s had enough.

“Surely you have that memorised by now.” He snaps as he comes back from the bathroom and Dean’s _still_ at it.

“Hmm. Doesn’t mean I know what to put on.”

“Oh the agony of choice.”

Dean snorts. “Choice is overrated. It was so much easier when you just picked the least worst option out of the four and a half channels your dumb motel could get and just dealt with it.”

“Some people said the same about free will.” Cas muses, mostly teasing.

“Huh?”

“Free will – that it was too difficult, not worth it.”

Dean snorts, kicks his feet up on the table. “Well, you’re the expert, you’ve had both.”  
  
Cas raps Dean’s shin with his stick to get him to move his legs out of the way. He could walk round, but that would take longer, and also, he wouldn’t get to annoy Dean.   
  
“It was fun for a while, but after some consideration, I’ve decided I’d like the blue pill, please.”

He expects Dean to laugh, congratulate him on his pop culture reference. He doesn’t expect the sad, almost wistful look on his face, or the self-deprecating grin that quickly replaces it.

“Yeah, betcha do.”

“It was a joke, Dean.”

“Yeah.”

“I was making a reference, trying to make you laugh.”

“Yeah, no. I get that.” He rubs at his chin with the heel of his palm, and Cas knows what that means. It means he’s tired and frustrated and blaming himself for something meaty. 

Cas guiltily takes stock of whether he has the mental stamina for this argument, finds himself lacking. One more quick shot, and if not, well. Dean’s gonna have to wallow in his misery.

He feels a twinge of disappointment at his own callousness, but not particularly any surprise. He is less, now. Physically and mentally. His love and patience and kindness are diminished along with his muscle mass – except somehow he suspects they’re less likely to recover with time.

“I took the red pill, Dean. I don’t regret that.”

Dean pulls a face, and Cas thinks he’s going to argue, but then it relaxes into something a little more open. 

“Still weird hearing you make film references.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Nah, just takes a bit of getting used to, y’know.”

“Hmm.”

“Does it um, bother you?”  
  
“What do you mean?”

“I mean, dude mind zapped all this junk into your head that wasn’t there before, rattling around and getting on your nerves.”

Cas shrugs. “Sometimes it can be confusing – I don’t have context.”

“S'not what I meant.”

“You mean does it feel like a violation?”

Dean fidgets a little, realising suddenly that he might be hitting on a nerve. “Yeah, kinda, I guess. I mean, getting all that stuff dumped in your melon.”

Cas smiles ruefully. It seems cruel to remind Dean of this, but his tongue is already moving.  
“My “melon” has spent millennia being erased, tweaked, rewired and rewritten. Gaining something instead of losing it almost felt like a welcome gift.”

Dean’s face goes white.

“Sorry, fuck, Cas. I’m so sorry, I—”

Cas waves his hand, a dismissal.  
  
“And anyway. It’s nice to finally have a clue what you’re talking about half the time.”

Dean senses the out, goes for it with both hands. “Only half the time?”  
  
“You talk a lot, sometimes I stop listening.”

Dean is still spluttering when Charlie walks in a few moments later.

“Did you break him?” She asks. 

Cas shrugs. “He can’t handle the truth.”

“No! Stop it!” Dean yelps, putting his hands over his ears. “I can’t deal with this.”

“O....kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.” Charlie isn’t sure she wants to know what’s going on, decides to just skip right over it.

“We could use some help with getting supplies outta the car.”

“You drove my car?!” 

And Dean is back in the room.

“Calm down. I didn’t even bother to look for the keys, I assume you keep them in a locket around your neck. And, oh yeah, right. The Impala is locked up in a fucking garage somewhere in Colorado.”

Dean laughs, but there’s a mild edge of hysteria.

“I’d forgotten, with everything going on. Can you believe that.”

“Things on your mind, dude. The car will forgive you.”

“Place better be treating her fucking right.”

“I’m sure they will.” Charlie says, making eye contact with Cas and mouthing _issues_ at him. “So, are you two coming to help, or not?”

“Yeah whatever.” Dean says.

“Cas?”

“Um, I’m not sure I’d be—”

“Just because you’re recovering doesn’t mean you can escape all the chores. There’ll be some bags you can carry.” She winks.

Okay, kinda mean, but it’ll do him good to be outside and getting some vitamin D. Plus if he’s anything like Dean, which considering who gave him his crash course in humanity (the poor fucking bastard – look, she loves Dean, but dude is like 7 kinds of fucked up), inaction will be fucking miserable for him. Making him feel useful will make him feel better, probably.

Dean looks like he’s about to raise a protest, and Charlie neatly kicks him in the shins and gives him _The Look._ It’s one of her specialities and can be adapted to fit almost any situation. This particular one means _no, I am not trying to kill your boyfriend with manual labour, I’m trying to keep him included so shut up and fuck off outside._

From Dean’s expression he only gets the last bit, but he rolls with it with a sort of harrumphed grace. 

*

“Jesus Christ, did you buy the entire store?” Dean asks incredulously, staring into the trunk of the jeep.

“Have you seen the size of our freezer. We could pack enough food in there that we’d never have to go shopping again.” Sam retorts.

“And I suppose I’d be the one cooking all this food?”

“You do not get to complain that no-one else uses the kitchen if you’ve cordoned it off and peed in every corner.” Sam says.

“Gross.” Charlie wrinkles her nose.

“I didn’t mean literally. I hope.”

“Keep this up and you’ll all be eating cereal until the day you die.” Dean says.

“What did I do?” Cas harrumphs.

“I could see you laughing!” Dean points at him. “You traitor.”

Cas catches Charlie’s eye, jerks his head slightly. “I think this calls for a mutiny.”

“Hey, what –NO—” Dean yelps, as Sam and Charlie grab him by the arms and pin him.

“I’m head chef around here now.” Cas crows.

Dean and Sam go pale, and Sam lets go of Dean.

“Oh god, we made a mistake. Take me back in, I’ll do anything.” Sam begs Dean.

Dean shucks free of Charlie’s grip, punches Sam hard on the shoulder.

“Quickest mutiny I’ve ever seen.” He snorts.

“What’s wrong with my cooking?” Cas demands.

“Nothing a bit more experience won’t fix. It takes time to learn that jam and pasta are not compatible flavours.”

“I was experimenting.”

Dean holds himself back from giving Cas a patronising pat on the shoulder.

“You were, which is fine. Maybe not when you’ve volunteered to cook a post hunt dinner and everyone’s about ready to chew their own arms off, though.”

Cas snorts, but doesn’t argue further.

They start to unload the supplies with only minimal bickering after that. Cas decides he can’t be fucked with walking right now and designates himself chief passer of bags to the actual three pack mules, standing by the car with a smug smile while they walk back and forth. 

“Jesus, Cas.” Sam grunts, as he’s passed a bag that weighs so much Cas can barely even lift it. “Why’re you giving me all the heavy ones?”

“You’re the one who packed them.”

“You gave Charlie a bag full of chips and Dean a load of loo roll.”

Cas shrugs. “Maybe you shouldn’t have betrayed me and insulted my cooking, then.”

Sam laughs. “That is cold, but I’ll take my punishment.”

Cas does ease up on him after that. He’d only been doing it to wind Sam up, there’s no actual malice there. 

Once one of the back seats is clear, Cas sits down on it. It’s a curious mix of relief and irritant. Resting his legs is nice, but of course, here comes the itching again.

He supposes it does make a nice change to be using the phrase “lesser of two evils” in the context of two minor irritations, and not of two near apocalypses. 

Fuck his life.

“You gonna give me a bag, or what?” Dean prompts.

Cas looks him up and down, amused when his ears turn a gentle pink. Dean blushes so easily, he’d forgotten.

“I don’t know whether I like the look of you.” Cas says. “You look like you might run off with something.”

“Might do.”

“Not going to protest your innocence?”

“Would it help?”

Cas sighs. “I suppose I’ll just have to take the risk.”

He hands over a bag of frozen vegetables, nearly starts when their fingers touch. For once the unexpected contact doesn’t jar, and he doesn’t feel the urge to pull away. Neither does it feel as pleasant as it once might have, but he’ll take that for now. And then Dean’s hand is gone and the moment is broken.

“Dean—”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I – I don’t know, just—”

Dean gives him a gentle little smile, and then a teasing wink, diffusing the charged moment with a joke.

“I know, I’m so handsome sometimes you can’t think straight.”

“I should’ve let someone else pull you out of hell.” Cas scoffs.

“Oh god, no thanks. Can you imagine me having a “profound bond” with someone who hated me as much as Uriel did, or with a fucking creep like Zachariah?”

“It takes more than dragging someone out of hell to form that kind of bond, but I see your point.”

“Oh yeah? So even if Zach had rebuilt me I’d still have hated his guts? And all this time I was counting my lucky stars and thinking there but for the grace of god.”

Cas can’t help the full body shudder that passes through him at the idea of Zachariah’s hands being anywhere near Dean in that fragile state. It took a lot of coaxing from his grace to soothe Dean’s mental scars, another angel taking less care could have—

“Why’re you laughing?”

“The apocalypse—” Cas gasps out between busts of hysteria, “was averted... because Zachariah... was too lazy...to pull you out...of hell.” 

“Y’what now?”

“He delegated the apocalypse away.” Cas is crying now, tears streaming down his face.

“Dude, did you hit your head? Have you lost it?” Dean turns towards the bunker, yells. “Someone get the smelling salts, we’ve got a bout of Victorian England style hysteria over here.” He’s only half joking, wondering if he said something to trigger – well, to trigger fuck knows honestly.

Cas waves away his concern, makes a dedicated effort at calming himself down even as Charlie and Sam come running out.

“You gonna tell me what that was about, Chuckles?”

“I pulled your soul out of hell and rebuilt your body on Zachariah’s orders. If he’d been bothered to do it himself—” He breaks down in giggles again, and Charlie and Dean exchange a look. It’s Sam who gets it.

“He’d have had Dean at his weakest moment, could have tampered with his brain or made him more susceptible to manipulation and conditioning – more likely to say yes.”

“Zach was too lazy to remove the stubborn streak from your ass, so the apocalypse didn’t happen.” Cas snorts.

“Okaaaaaaaay. I think that’s enough excitement for you today.” 

“He’d just have” Cas clicks his fingers, “bye stubborn asshole Dean, hello placid lobotomised Dean.”

“I’m glad you think Zach cracking my noodle is so funny, dude.”

“It’s funny because it’s absurd, and terrifying.”  
  
“I’ll drink to that.” Dean snorts, relegating that near fucking miss to the pile of _things we Do Not Think About._


	9. Not Many People Know That ‘Ikea’ Is Actually Swedish for ‘Hell’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is approximately 8bajillion degrees in the UK at the moment and my brain is not working so although I have read this for errors like 4 times there is a higher than usual chance some have slipped through.

Dean takes one look the way Charlie and Sam have started stacking the fridge, tuts, and pulls it all out.

“Barbarians.” He scoffs under his breath, and Sam flips him off as he and Charlie attempt to escort Cas back into the living room.

“Maybe I wanted to stay with Dean.” Cas mutters, folding his arms.

“Hey, if you want to sit and listen to him complain about the correct places to put food for the next hour feel free.” Sam says. “I was trying to save you from a fate worse than death.”

Cas starts walking.

“Hey, you said you love me, damage and all.” Dean says.

“I do. I’ve just suddenly remembered I have something very important to do in the other room.”

“Traitor.” Dean waves a leek menacingly in their direction, and then turns back to the job.

*

“Was he this precious when you lived in motels?” Charlie asks, throwing herself onto the sofa and stretching out with an _I dare you to move me_ grin.

“No, I think he stored up like 30 years worth of domestic crazy and now it’s got an outlet he’s gone rogue.” Sam says, settling in one of the armchairs.

“It gets us out of putting the shopping away.” Cas says, debating whether he has the energy to find his own seat or if he should just crumple on top of Charlie and damn the consequences. She sees his intent and moves her legs up with a dramatic sigh.

*

Dean returns nearly an hour later to find Cas, once again, asleep on the sofa.

“He always this tired or did you two bore him to death?”

“Fuck you, we’re interesting people.” Sam says. “And no, actually. I’m kinda relieved to see it. He wasn’t sleeping well at all before.”

“Huh.” Dean says, ignoring Charlie’s pointed look. “Maybe we should set up like a sofa-bed or something. So he can still be in here with us and not left out, but still be, y’know, able to sleep without breaking his neck.”

“That’s a nice idea.” Sam says, “but where are you gonna get a – no. Okay. Hell no. Not—”

“IKEA.”

“No.”

“C’mon dude. It was _one_ time.”

“There is no way in hell—”

“What?” Charlie cuts in. “Tell me.”

The Winchesters share a look, and Sam makes like he’s about to say something. Dean cuts him off with a shake of the head and Sam sighs, grits his teeth.

“You know how much I hate IKEA.”

“It’s not that ba—”

“No.”

“Well I can’t exactly fucking order a goddamn sofa for delivery to our super-secret bunker, can I?”

“You don’t have to order it. There have gotta be places nearby you could buy a sofa-bed from.”

“Not as close as IKEA there ain’t. I can be there and back in 2 hours, less if I really hurry it on.”

“Look dude, do whatever you want, but there is no way I am going anywhere near an IKEA with you.”

“I never said I wanted you to. I’m an adult, I can pick up a goddamn sofa on my own.”

There’s an awkward beat of silence where Sam tries to think of a less horrible way to phrase what he wants to say than, _‘I’m worried if you go by yourself you won’t come back.’_ Eventually Charlie steps in.

“Sure you can go on your own, but dude, no one should have to brave IKEA solo, and anyway, meatballs are my jam.”

Dean snorts, and Charlie can see the argument bubbling up inside him, ready to launch so she grabs his arm, drags him out of the room. Sam, wisely, stays put.

“If you’re gonna yell at me, let’s do it where we won’t wake Cas.” She hopes that’ll be enough to diffuse him, but, because this is not her fucking month, of course it isn’t.

He waits until they’re out of earshot, then launches into a huffy. “So, what, is there some rule about travelling in pairs now? Or is it just me who’s not allowed out solo?”

“Sue me for wanting to hang out with you in a non-apocalyptic setting.” She tries, but Dean doesn’t bite.

“We could ‘hang out’ here.”

“Maybe I want a say in what the sofa looks like.”

“Didn’t peg you for a home decor kind of gal.”

“Didn’t peg you as a home decor guy, either.”

Dean makes an awkward, blustery grunt, like he’s trying to blow off her words in a manly fashion, and Charlie sighs.

“All right, what’s up?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“You’re being all macho-posturing Dean. Which you only do when you’re stressing about something.”

“I’m not stressing.”

“But?”

“This is gonna sound dumb, but before it all kicked off, me and Cas were gonna go do the whole IKEA thing – redecorate everything, make the place more ours. Feels kinda skeevy going without him.”

“You’re only getting one thing though; you’re not stepping on Cas’s toes at all.”

“But it’s _for_ him _._ ”

“And?”

“What if he doesn’t like it?”

“Then you take it back.”

“But—”

“Don’t you dare get cold feet on me now, you repressed bastard.”

“I’m not getting cold feet, I’m just not sure this is a good idea.”

“Dean, that’s practically the dictionary definition of cold feet.”

“Yeah, well. I’m a repressed bastard not an English professor, so.”

“Dean, c’mon. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah, so how did you mean it?”

Charlie sighs. “We haven’t even left yet and we’re already fighting. The IKEA curse strikes again.” Dean just glares at her, so she thinks fuck it, ploughs on. “Okay, look. You’re a wonderful person, incredibly kind and thoughtful, but it’s like there’s this mental block in your head. If you don’t do whatever nice thing you want to instantly you start like second guessing yourself and saying what if you get rejected and what if it’s dumb and you’re dumb so what’s the point in doing it, and you just pretend you don’t care.”

“I don’t—” His voice is raw, and Charlie knows she’s hit a nerve, cuts him off before he can try and refute what she’s saying.

“Dude, you went from Cas looks cute on the sofa to Cas needs a proper bed to sleep in and instead of just like moving him to his room you thought, hey, wouldn’t it be nice if I could sort something out so that he can stay with us and still be able to sleep comfortably. And then one tiny roadblock came at you and you decided it was a terrible idea and you shouldn’t do it – all in the space of about 5 minutes.”

“I’m not repressed. I just don’t know whether Cas would like it.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Because it’s a dumb idea.”

“Cas is going to think you going out of your way to be thoughtful and nice is dumb?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re allowed to do nice things for people without having to justify them, Dean.”

“But—”

“But what? Get the bed. If Cas doesn’t like it, we can return it. Dude already knows you love him in some epic, legends will be written about this, way.” She pauses, not sure if she should say the next words that are scrambling to come out of her mouth. “Your instinct is to do nice things, but it’s like there’s a switch that flicks if you get more than a minute to think about them and there’s this voice going don’t do it. Don’t reveal how much you care. But look, buying Cas a frickin’ sofa isn’t going to reveal you’re the limp-wristed fag your father always told you to hate.”

Dean flinches, and Charlie smacks down the guilt at the stricken look on his face. Someone needs to remind him every now and then, when he falls back into his old, safe, bullshit patterns.

She touches him on the shoulder, forces him to meet her gaze.

“I’m not saying this to be a dick, okay. I need you to understand that.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, but she can see him ticking over something in his head, weighing it up.

“You wanna know why Sam hates IKEA?” He says, eventually.

Charlie lets him get away with the subject change, not wanting to push him too far.

“Why?”

“See, we’d holed up in this same town for a few weeks, on the hunt for something taking down retail workers – vengeful spirit in an IKEA if you can fucking believe. So anyway, the EMF was going nuts all over the building, but we just couldn’t get there in time – it kept taking people out and we kept missing it.

“Dad interviewed people, but it got nowhere, nothing useful. So, seeing as he’d already burned his bridges telling them he was FBI, we decided I’d go undercover.”

“You worked in an IKEA?”

“Don’t get excited, it wasn’t for too long.”

“What happened?” His flat, almost emotionless tone doesn’t bode well.

“So, dad got a lead on the ghost but I wasn’t answering my phone, so they had to come get me. ‘Cept, I wasn’t working. I was on my knees, getting real acquainted with one of my co-workers.”

“And Sam?”

“Got an eyeful.”

“What about your dad?”

Dean laughs. “I was back on my feet by the time he arrived, and 'cause he didn’t say anything, naive little fuck that I was, I assumed I’d gotten away with it.”

“But—”

“What do you think, Charlie?”

“Dean, I’m sorry—”

He shrugs her arm off his shoulder.

“Sam doesn’t like IKEA because every time he sees the logo it reminds him of the first time he saw a lot more of me than nature intended. Nothing else. ‘Preciate if you could keep it that way.”

“Dean,”

“Sharing hour’s over for today, ‘kay. Time to go get a fucking bed.”

And just like that, he walks out of the room. Charlie takes a moment to follow him. She has no idea if this counts as a victory or not, she’s too busy reeling from the emotional whiplash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m pretending there is an IKEA near the bunker for narrative reasons please don’t @ me because I do not care.


	10. Two Idiots Verses a Sofa

They stop off in the cafe for meatballs first, at Charlie’s insistence. 

“What’s got you so twitchy?” She asks, when Dean “bottomless pit of hunger” Winchester tries to hurry them past the cafe. “I can hear your stomach growling from here, I know you want food.”

“Let’s just make this quick, okay?”

“Spoken like a man who has never had to do an actual IKEA shop.”

“I just don’t want to waste time, Charlie.” He says, as she steers him into the lunch queue and then orders for him when he’s too busy vibrating on the spot to notice the poor server trying to get his attention.

“Actually, you just wanna be back at home with Cas.” She corrects as they find a seat.

“Yeah, and what?”

“Nothing, but dude, chill. Taste your delicious Swedish cuisine instead of inhaling it. Sam is perfectly capable of looking after Cas while you’re gone.”

“I don’t want him to wake up thinking I’ve split on him.”

“He won’t, he trusts you.” Charlie says, although her reassuring tone is somewhat lost through the mouthful of food she spews it through.

Dean just snorts disbelievingly, and Charlie raps him on the head with a rolled-up IKEA magazine.

“Bad dog.”

“Screw you, Charlie.” He says, but he does slow down enough that Charlie stops mentally rehearsing the Heimlich manoeuvre.

*

In one of the most rapid, and regretful about turns that Charlie has ever witnessed on this good earth, Dean hums and haws over the sofa-bed selection for so long that she actually thinks she loses the will to live.

“What about this futon thing?” Charlie asks eventually, to try and expedite the process a little tiny bit.

“Which one?”

“The pas merbo?”

“Okay, one, even I know you’re not pronouncing that right, and two, I don’t think a futon is gonna be good for his back.”

“Dude, no sofa-bed is gonna be good for anyone’s back.”

“Shit, yeah. Maybe it’d be better if we dragged—”

“No.” Charlie cuts him off.

“You don’t even know what I was gonna say.”

“I can guarantee you two things if you try and drag one of the beds already in the bunker into that room. First, Cas is gonna burn your eyes out, even without his angel powers, and two, it would get wedged in the oh so narrow doorways because there’s no way they didn’t use magic to get those things inside - have you seen the size of the corridors?”

Dean concedes with a shrug.

“So what, then?”

“You’re not buying him a proper bed. It’s just something comfy we can put in the living room for naps. Just get whatever offends your inner Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen the least and we can princess and the pea that shit up with so many layers of foam mattress softener it’ll be like sleeping on a cloud.”

“How is that different to putting a proper bed in the room, though.”

“Perception. Also those sofas are about a hundred years old and lumpy as fuck so my vote is they need replacing anyway.”

Dean nods slowly, pacified by that. Charlie heaves a sigh of relief, follows him back around the sofa section as he insists on trying out each one, sitting down and bouncing around on them so many times that eventually an employee comes over to see if they’re okay.

She succeeds where Charlie fails, moving the process along with practised haste, and persuading Dean to settle on something called a Holmsund.

Getting it back to the bunker proves easy enough – thanks in no small part to Charlie having employed her magic powers of persuasion to get Dean to drive a sensible car for once, but it’s another matter when they unload it and try and get it inside.

“There’s no way this is going through the front door.” Dean realises, staring at the very flat, but very tall box.

“You might get it through the door, I have doubts about the stairs.”

“Fuck.”

“Yup.”

“Okay, so, we take it through the garage?”

They manage to squeeze it through all the cars and into the bunker proper after a bit of manoeuvring, but the narrow corridors and sharp turns once there present some issues.

“Stupid fucking old timey midgets and their old timey midget rooms.” Dean curses under his breath, as they try and jimmy it into just the right angle to get it past a particularly nasty corner.

“The rooms are big, it’s the corridors that are the problem.”

“I can’t believe we didn’t measure anything before we came out.” Dean huffs, and Charlie bites back the petulant urge to remind him that he was so skittish about this whole idea it’d have been a miracle getting him out with _another_ delay to let the cold feet sink in.

“Have we even cleared a space for it in the living room?” Charlie asks, as, having made it so, so close to where they need to be, they find themselves idly trying to break the laws of physics at the final hurdle and pivot a very large, very solid object around one final tight corner.

“Less talking more pulling.” Dean grunts. His untrained but somewhat skilled engineering mind is telling him this is definitely possible, but in the least helpful of ways, it isn’t being particularly forthcoming with how.

Things aren’t being helped by the intervention of a very ornery ex-angel who doesn’t seem too pleased to have been woken up from his nap on the old sofa and has decided to just stand there and shout “PIVOT” in his best Ross from Friends impression. And really, Dean thinks, he did have to pick the douchiest of all the characters. Why couldn’t he pretend to be Chandler, or Monica or one of the cool ones?

“That’s really helping me concentrate, thanks!” Dean snaps when it finally gets a bit too much.

“Concentrate?” Cas scoffs. “You’re trying to get it in through brute force, why do you need to concentrate?”

“I’m trying to figure out the right angle, assface.”

“Hmph.” Cas comes up behind Charlie, whispers in her ear and gestures to her to change the placement of her hands, very careful not to touch her. There’s a little more give, but still not enough.

He turns his attention to Dean. “Dean, angle it more like this.” He swipes his hands diagonally, as Dean gawps uselessly and doesn’t move.

“Y’what now?”

“I think he needs you to go over there and place his hands for him, Cas.” Charlie says with a stage wink.

“If he thinks I’m crawling under whatever very heavy thing you two idiots are decidedly failing to move, he’s even more stupid than I thought.” Cas grumbles.

They do eventually get it in the room, several chipped off layers of paint later – but mostly after Sam ambles past on his way back from wherever he’d been hiding to avoid all the hard work, and suggests that maybe they should take it out of the box and it’d be smaller, you goddamn idiots.

For that he gets a punch on the shoulder (Dean) and a grateful exemption from having to do any of the assembly (Charlie).

“I can’t believe you stopped an apocalypse.” Cas grumbles as Sam and Dean shunt the old sofa out of the way, into the corner of the room.

“I can’t believe someone who just woke up from a nap could be so grumpy.” Dean teases.

“Fuck you.” Cas replies, and he says it with such sincerity that it fells everyone in the room.

He plays at being even more annoyed by this, but all the laughter is infectious, and soon they’re all in wheezing hysterics. In Cas’s case quite literally, but he does his best not to let it show.

He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

*

For once, Cas doesn’t insist that he’s well enough to join in the physical activities. He picks up the instruction booklet and takes almost worrying delight in ordering everyone around.

Dean resists at first. “I know how to put a goddamn flat pack together.”

“Since when?” Sam challenges.

“Since I’m not a moron, and since, um, I was a normal fucking person with a real house and a normal job for a year so fuck you all.”

“You don’t know this one is the same as any others you might have assembled.” Cas points out.

“It’s IKEA. How hard can it be?”

“So you’re willing to gamble the wellbeing of your _family_ just because you don’t want to follow instructions.” Charlie says with a smirk.

“I know exactly what you’re doing and it’s not – yeah, okay it is fucking working gimme the goddamn booklet, Ass-tiel.”

“Keep up that attitude and I’ll have to set the booklet on fire.”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to fudge it.”

“Can you three _please_ stop flirting and build the goddamn sofa,” Sam sighs.

“Sam’s just jealous because he knows he can’t have this.” Charlie quips, and Sam nods.

“You got me, I’m so hopelessly in love. Instead of dealing with it, let’s pine and save each other’s lives and generate mind-blowing levels of UST for the next like 5 years.”

“I know that was a dig, Sam.” Dean swats him with a coverless cushion. “Good things come to those who wait.”

“And how long am I gonna have to wait for you idiots to finish setting up that goddamn sofa?”

“Yeah, well, maybe if _someone_ was helping we’d get it done faster.”

“Hey, it wouldn’t even be in the room if it weren’t for me. My job is done.”

*

“This sofa is lumpy.”

“I swear to god—”

“Maybe if you hadn’t got mad and tried to smash one of the cushions against a wall—”

“One more word, Sam. One more goddamn word.”

*

Much as Dean enjoys assembling furniture while being roundly insulted by the 3 people he considers closest, eventually his stomach can be ignored no longer. It gives an embarrassingly large grumble, and that’ll just give the assholes more fuel to take the piss.

Of course his attempt to sneak out of the room and get something to placate it with doesn’t go unnoticed. Three pairs of hopeful eyes lock on and follow him to the door.

“I’m just going for a piss.” He lies.

“But while you’re up...” Charlie says hopefully.

“While I’m up I might just get myself a snack.” He concedes with a huff.

“Is that to refuel all the energy you used threatening to set fire to the sofa?” Cas asks with that innocent little grin on his face that makes Dean want to punch him or kiss him or both.

“Making a sandwich for myself, and definitely not for Cas.” Dean says.

“I’m not hungry anyway.” Cas shrugs, then realises his mistake as Dean goes from 0 to overbearing caregiver in a blink.

“Really? But you haven’t eaten for hours. Do you have a temperature – it could be fever?”

“Dean.” Sam interrupts, able to see the closed off look shuttering down Cas’s face. “He’s not hungry because he’s been asleep for most of the day. How about we go make everyone a nice, proper meal and by that time we’ll all be hungry.”

Dean fixes Sam with a look that used to make Sam quail, back when he was young. _I know exactly what you’re doing you little shit and I’m tryna decide whether or not to go along with it._

Luckily Dean decides, with a harrumphed sigh, not to challenge it.

“Yeah, fine. I’ll cook for all of you freeloading bastards.”

“I said I’d help.”

“Maybe I don’t want help.”

“Maybe tough shit.”

“Uh, whatever, Jerk. I see through your transparent attempt at getting out of the dishes, don’t think I don’t.”

*

Dean opens the fridge to scout for ingredients – he’s feeling burgers. Everyone likes burgers. He pokes absently around, looking for mince. There’s too much goddamn stuff in here, and despite his best efforts, most of it isn’t in the right place. Goddamn animals, moving it all around. He bets Sam and Charlie did it to shit with him.

He shuffles yet another goddamn head of lettuce out of the way (how many can one man need, seriously) and unearths a 6 pack of beer. He has his hand around the neck of a bottle, can almost taste it, when Sam comes bustling into the kitchen. Dean lets go, as guilty as if he’d just been caught fondling pictures of the First Blade. He pushes all the lettuce back in front, drops his hand to another, more innocent shelf.

Maybe he’s overreacting a little, it’s just a beer. Not even spirits or anything hard. Just one beer. It just felt, something. Like he was letting Cas down. Like he was being disrespectful, drinking when Cas was off the, y’know. Stuff. He doesn’t know if it’s okay, if Cas would mind, or if it’d make things harder for him having Dean there swigging from a bottle. Like, Sam must know, Sam’s the one who usually thinks about these things, and he still bought the beer.

But then, even if Cas says it’s okay, does that make it right? He’s supposed to be putting his effort into being there for Cas right now, fixing the damage he did to their relationship. Can he do that if he’s slipping back into old, bad habits, bad patterns?

It’s the automatic nature of the movement, mostly, that’s got him shaky. See beer, drink beer. He’s not like that when he’s happy. When everything is okay there’s at least the checkbox of _Ooh there’s beer, do I want a beer_? The answer is usually yes, but at least he stops to fucking think about it. That, that wasn’t present this time. If Sam hadn’t come in, that beer would have been down his throat in an instant, without time for any conscious thought process to weigh in.

He got Cas back, he’s here in the bunker with him and Sam and Charlie and they’re watching shit TV and teasing each other and eating home cooked food and doing all the shit on Dean’s checkbox of domestic fucking bliss.

He must be happy.

But why can he still taste it, then, in the back of his throat, cold and slick and so, so goddamn smooth? He can feel the sensation of it even, sliding down his throat. The warm, fuzzy feeling of a good number of bottles down wrapping up his brain and smoothing out all his thoughts—

“So, what’re we cooking?” Sam’s welcome voice snaps him out of it.

Not that he needed it. He could’ve done that by himself, just, y’know. It’s nice to have a bit of a distraction.


	11. Orizuru

“Sooo,” Dean begins, with the type of drawn out faux casualness that means he’s been trying to work out how to bring something up for a while. It’s a tone Cas recognises from a thousand films – so much so that he half expects Dean to start telling him that he talked to their mutual friend Sandra last night, and she said she hasn’t seen Cas at yoga for months – so where was he really, and why was he lying?

He swallows down a flippant reference. This pop culture nonsense is incredibly annoying. Is this what it’s like in Dean’s head, he wonders - every serious response he gives picked out from a heap of glib comments. It’d explain a lot, to be fair.

With all of this mental freewheeling going on, Cas is quite surprised when the next word out of Dean’s mouth is, “origami.”

“What about it?” He asks, defensive and off-balanced but hoping it won’t show. Dean holds up his hands protectively, though, so clearly it does.

“Nothing to bite my head off about. Just, Sam mentioned you’d started doing it.”

“Oh.”

“Said you were the one who made the little dragon on my bed.”

Cas’s eyes narrow. “I got rid of that.”

“Oh. Well, I found it on the bed, when I got back.”

Cas’s expression softens. “Sam must have found it. I’d made it for you, originally – but then I decided that a slip of paper wouldn’t make up for my behaviour, so what would be the point.”

“You weren’t the only one who acted like a dick, Cas. At least you had good reason.”

“I’m not trying to go over dead ground here, I know we’ve put that behind us.” Put it behind them, or just come to a mutual unspoken agreement not to talk about it.

Dean makes a little noise of agreement, possibly a little sarcastic on his own part. It’s hard not to re-tread old ground when your self-doubt won’t stop spinning you back to face it.

“I’m glad Sam rescued it.” Cas carries on. “I hope it wasn’t too messed up. I seem to remember stuffing it in the back of a cupboard.”

Dean shrugs. “Looked pretty pristine to me.” He’d taken it with him, planning to keep it in his wallet. A little painful reminder of what he and Cas had once had. He’d have had to flatten it out to do that, though, fold it, too. Ruin it, basically. Which yeah, if he’d stuck to his plan to hit the road would probably have been like some sort of fucking eighth grade metaphor. Here’s something beautiful that I’ve crumpled up and stuffed away.

“I’ve still got it. It’s in the drawer in my room. Was gonna get a bit of string and hang it in the Impala. Good luck charm.”

Cas doesn’t say anything to that, but Dean thinks he likes the idea. Hopes so, anyway.

He lets the silence stretch for a minute, maybe more. “What made you start, the origami, I mean?”

“I found a book at the bottom of a box Sam gave me; thought it’d make a good distraction.”

“And did it?”

“As much as anything. Why the sudden interest?”

Dean flushes slightly, in the way that he does when he’s about to say something sweet and is embarrassed by it.

“I, uh. Well. Sam said you were really into it, and I thought, y’know, it’d be a dick move of me to not at least try and show an interest in what you like doing.” He says in a gruff tone, not making eye contact.

Cas is overcome with a ferocious desire to kiss him, but he tamps it down. The last thing he wants to do is accidentally trigger an attack and ruin this moment.

“I’d really like that, Dean.”

“Uh, good.” He messes with his hair. “So uh, is now good for you?”

“Well,” Cas deadpans, unable to resist, “let me clear it with my secretary, my schedule is oh so busy this week.”

“Alright smart ass.” Dean fires back, reaching for his pocket. “I actually had a go without you – wanted to surprise you, but uh. Look, it’s harder than it looks okay, the diagrams don’t make a lick of fucking sense. And I asked Sam, but he just mumbled some bullshit about frogs and dragons and wandered off laughing to himself like a fucking headcase.”

Cas suppresses a smile, and then a frown as Dean pulls out a bedraggled, crumpled looking thing. Cas thinks it has two legs. He’s not sure.

“It’s supposed to be the unicorn, from Blade Runner.” Dean fills in eventually, when it becomes clear that Cas can’t even manage an appropriate guess.

“I thought unicorns traditionally had four legs.”

“Yeah, well. I was supposed to do it in two halves and then glue them together.”

“See, that’s where you’re going wrong. Modern origami purists are very against cutting and gluing.”

“Oh.”

“The book was very clear, and very scathing about it.”

“You saying I’m a faker, Cas?”

“Not me, the book.”

“Well as long as it’s inanimate objects ragging me out, I ‘spose that’s fine.”

“I’ll bear that in mind next time the urge to insult you overcomes me. It’s fine if I tell you the dishwasher thinks your hair looks a mess.”

“Well know you’ve said that I’m gonna know it was you.”

“Whereas before you would have thought that it _was_ the dishwasher.”

“.......shut up.”

Cas smiles, wide and sincere. Dean responds with an exaggerated pout.

“So are we gonna do this, or what?”

“Do what?” Cas asks, distracted by the warm familiarity of the teasing.

“The origami, dipshit.”

Cas blinks like a startled owl, and then laughs. Dean’s not sure whether to be concerned at the sudden absentmindedness or not.

“Dude, if your ass has dementia on top of all this crap I’m gonna fistfight my goddamn way into heaven and twat God in the face myself, his fault or not.”

He expects Cas to protest that he’s fine, or maybe to laugh. He doesn’t expect the soft, fond look in Cas’s eyes – so unlike the weary and often subtly jaded expression that’s been the norm recently.

“Yes, I expect you would.”

Dean blushes, splutters somewhat – and now Cas does laugh. Dean’s a lot easier to fluster than most people realise, you just have to know the right thing to say. The most obscene or disgusting language glances off him – not hugely surprising given his life. It’s the things he didn’t hear very often after his fourth birthday – sincere and unabashed displays of affection from the adults he loved.

Tell him you want to fuck him until he cries and he’ll smirk and tell you to bring it on. Tell him that you love him so much it feels like a wound when he’s unhappy and he won’t know what to do with it. It’s too big.

It’s a delicate game, though. A comment like that is almost guaranteed to be too much – to tip him over the edge and into a spiral of denial and self-hate and unworthiness. It’s hard to compliment someone who doesn’t believe they’re worthy of love, but if you can just get one tiny bit of that through to them. Well, it’s worth it.

“So,” Dean manages eventually, “do you need any special paper for this crap?”

Cas accepts the subject change without quibble. “You can but you don’t have to. I have some coloured card that Sam gave me.”

“Sweet. Where is it?”

“What makes you think I’m going to waste my good card on you?”

“Wow, harsh.”

“We can practice on plain paper.”

“Maybe I’m gonna turn out to be a goddamn origami Mozart, and then you’ll be sorry.”

“If I hadn’t seen your attempted unicorn, maybe I’d be worried.”

“How do you know I wasn’t just pretending to be shit to hustle you?”

“That’s a risk I’m prepared to take.”

Dean follows Cas to the library, where he makes a beeline for a cupboard that Dean has no memory of ever noticing before. Cas opens it and pulls out a think wadge of plain paper, which he hands to Dean.

“Where the fuck’d you get all that from?” Dean asks, peering past him into the cupboard. There must be thousands of sheets in there, all bundled up in neat little parcels as thick as Dean’s arm and stacked on top of each other.

“That’s the strange thing.” Cas huffs. “Sam swears he hasn’t replenished the supply once, yet every day I take paper out of it, and the next day there’s the exact same amount as there was when I first opened it.”

Dean examines Cas’s face carefully, looking for tells.

“You’re BS-ing me.”

“I’m not. Ask Sam.”

“Yeah, because my kid brother _definitely_ wouldn’t lie just to shit with me.”

“Charlie, then.”

“There is literally no-one in this bunker that I would trust to tell me the truth about the fucking cabinet of infinite printer paper. Which, I mean, would they even have had cheap-ass paper like this when this place was built?”

“The cabinet works in mysterious ways.”

“The cabinet’s about to get rammed where the sun don’t shine.” Dean growls, but there’s a spark in his eye that lets Cas know he isn’t _really_ annoyed.

They settle down at the table and Dean plonks a heap of paper down, takes a sheet and looks at Cas expectantly.

“So, what’re we making first, sensei?”

“Something basic, I think.”

“Aw, c’mon. I’ve got an origami master teaching me, let’s start off with something fun.”

Cas raises an eyebrow. “If you insist.”

He grabs Sam’s laptop from the table, boots it up and then, instead of using the guest login Sam forces everyone to use, clicks on Sam’s profile and taps in the password. He gets it right on the second try.

“Woah, woah. Did you just guess Sam’s laptop password?”

Cas shrugs. “He changes it every month but he can never remember it for the first few days. Has to write it down. For someone so “good at the nerd stuff”” he parrots Dean’s usual mocking phrase, “he’s not very good at the nerd stuff.”

“So what is it?”

“None of your business.”

“Dude?!”

“You’ll have to earn it.”

Despite Dean’s pleading, Cas refuses to even give him a clue. Instead he brings up an origami website and then spins the laptop around to face Dean.

“Take your pick.”

Dean flicks through a few pages of the easier ones, but it’s all boring shit like frogs and butterflies. Cas is almost ready to give up and go to sleep when, finally, Dean stops moaning about how lame all the options are and points to one in the middle of the list.

“You want to make a crane? You know a crane is bird, don’t you? They don’t mean a construction one.”

“Yeah, ha-ha. I know what a goddamn crane is.”

“It doesn’t have teeth, or turn into a demon at night.”

“No, but it’s lucky, you asshole. Figured we could use a bit of that around here.”

Ah. Cas swallows down a callous reply. “I believe legend claims that if you make 1,000 in a year, you’re granted a wish.”

“Huh.” A slight pause. “Any truth in that?” Dean’s only half joking, Cas can tell from his tone.

Cas can’t hold his tongue this time, skewers Dean with a disparaging look. “Yes, Dean. If you fold 1,000 birds the gods shall descend from the heavens to grant you their favour.”

“Alright, Mr Flippant. I had an evil magic tattoo, you once got turned into a plastic toy, and Sam used to be able to kill demons with the power of his mind. Less of the tone, huh?”

“You’re right.” Cas says. “I tell you what, I’ll stay here and fold 1,000 cranes and you can go out and hunt for dragonballs. Say hello to Goku for me.”

Dean laughs. “Well, if you really want dragonballs I can get you dragonballs. I’m just not sure they grant the kind of wishes you’re after.”

“Gross.”

“You started it.”

“And, as usual, you escalated it.” He says, with a weary smile.

Dean grins back like a little kid in response, unreasonably proud of something ridiculous, and then waves his bit of paper at Cas in an invitation for him to stop blathering and start folding.

Cas clicks through to the instructions and skims the diagrams.

“First thing we have to do is cut the paper down to size.”

“You mean the cupboard of requirement didn’t make it the exact right size for us?” Dean snorts.

“No, it didn’t. You’re going to have to do some work.”

Dean makes a disgruntled noise but doesn’t complain further as Cas shows him how to fold his sheet into a square and cut off the excess.

“1 out of 1,000, here we go.” Dean rubs his hands together in what might be fake enthusiasm, Cas can’t quite tell.

Real or not, that enthusiasm wanes over the next half hour. He makes it through the first steps pretty easily, copying Cas more than listening to his instructions, but after folding it into a double-sided square he struggles.

He can see the delicate shape that Cas is folding and unfolding to demonstrate, but he can’t make his own fingers do the same. They feel thick and clumsy – just like he does. Even what little he’s actually managed looks inelegant and, frankly, pretty shit when he compares it to Cas’s.

“This is harder than it looks.” He says through gritted teeth, and Cas hums in agreement.

“It takes practice. I’ve had a head start.”

“Nah, I bet you’d still do better even if you were starting out too.” He’s going for supportive, rather than bitter there. Not sure it lands that way, though, ‘cause Cas looks at him with something kicking at the boundaries of disappointment. This was supposed to be fun and now he’s ruining it by being a little bitch. “Uh, show me one more time.” He asks, but Cas shakes his head.

“I’ve got a better idea.” He stands up and shuffles to stand behind Dean, hands ghosting over Dean’s but not quite touching. Instead of showing Dean the next fold and letting him copy it, he directs his hands, pointing to the exact place where each corner needs to line up.

Dean’s still not perfect, but now at least he can get something close to the right fold – gradually shaping something up that, while crumpled, is starting to look increasingly bird like.

As he bends the wings up to their 90 angle one of Cas’s fingers brushes lightly against his hand. It’s an accidental touch, but it sears through Dean, leaves nervous excitement churning in his stomach.

It happens again, and again, and Dean realises that these soft touches aren’t so accidental. And God, it sounds like he should be writing it in a goddamn teenage angst diary. It’s nothing at all, but to Dean it is, God, it is.

He’s been so starved of Cas’s touch that this barest contact feels like coming home, like being able to breathe for the first time in forever, like all the stupid fucking cliches that he’s sneered at over the years.

“What?” Cas asks, looking at him, head titled quizzically, and that’s how Dean realises he’s grinning like a maniac.

Dean can’t even go there, can’t marshal the fucking warm gooey feeling into words and even if he could, he doubts he could get it out of his throat without wanting to bite his own tongue off.

“I’m happy.” He says, instead, hoping it gets through. “So sue me.”

Cas hums again, a little contented noise, plucks the finished crane from Dean’s hands and examines it.

“One down, 999 to go.”

Dean thinks, quietly, that consequences aside, he’s used up his supply of good luck for this lifetime. He got Cas back, and he’s a little different, but god. He’s alive and relatively safe and he still wants to stick around. Asking for more feels churlish, like tempting fate.

But that’s a problem for 999 cranes time.


	12. Backslide

Cas wakes up a grand total of fifteen times during the night – mostly as a result of the perils of napping too much, but once because he rolled over onto his back in a misguided unconscious attempt to get comfortable.

And of course the resulting grunt of pain had woken Dean. Luckily he’d been quite easy to fob off, but still. It shows that Cas can’t let his guard down, even when he’s half asleep.

Because he’s hiding something from Dean, of course he is. And maybe he’s doing it for the sorts of reasons one might expect, to be noble and spare Dean suffering.

Or maybe he’s doing it entirely for himself. Maybe he doesn’t care about Dean being hurt, maybe he just doesn’t want Dean to see the state of his back because he doesn’t want there to be one more thing for Dean to pity him about. Maybe just the thought of the sad, sympathetic little look he’ll get makes him want to punch Dean right in the goddamn face. And maybe he’s a dirty fucking hypocrite who’s tangled himself in so many mental knots justifying it with this lie is okay but a more innocent lie by omission earlier wasn’t fine and fuck off brain fuck off fuck off fuck off.

The fifteenth time he wakes up his brain resists going back to sleep, bouncing all of this around in his head until, with a sigh, he rolls over onto his other side, to face Dean.

Who isn’t there.

He checks the time – 5am, and makes a disgusted noise. Honestly, he thought he’d trained Dean out of this stupid self-inflicted borderline insomnia, but no. The minute he leaves him unsupervised he reverts straight back into old patterns.

It’s selfish, is what it is, because now Cas is going to have to get up and go and find him and drag him back to bed by the ears or something equally painful.

Just because it’s been a long time since he could just lift Dean up and move him to where he wanted him to be, doesn’t mean he’s lacking in other means.

With a long-suffering sigh, Cas begins the slow process of peeling himself out of bed. He regrets allowing Dean to persuade him to decamp from the sofa-bed (best idea Dean has ever had, that thing) and to something with “proper back support” (and oh he’d had to resist the fucking laugh bubbling up at that.) Lumbar issues aside, the fucking thing is much closer to the rest of the bunker than this stupid bedroom.

He’s worked himself up into a right irritable froth by the time he finds Dean – in the kitchen, of course.

“Cas?” Dean asks, without looking up from his saucepan. Gone are the days when Cas could sneak up on him – this stupid clacking stick and his Darth Vader breathing see to that. “What’re you doing up, buddy?”

“I’ve come to drag your ass back to bed.”

Dean laughs. “Go back to sleep, dude. I’m up for the day.”

“This isn’t the day.”

“Yeah, but I woke up and I wasn’t tired, so figured I might as well be useful. This weird vegetable crap of Sam’s has a shelf life of like five minutes so I’m catching it in the last moments before it turns to goop or whatever. I can hear the molecules starting to loosen”

“Come and be useful back in bed. The sun hasn’t even risen.”

“I’m not tired, Cas.”

“You don’t sleep enough.”

“Hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Come back to bed, you stubborn asshat.”

“Look who’s talking. I’ve got food on the go and I’m not even slightly tired. If I came back with you now I’d just be lying there staring at the ceiling.”

“I don’t care if you’re not tired. You can read a book or listen to music or something.”

Cas can see by the tension in his shoulders that Dean has come to some bullshit “realisation”, grinds his teeth in displeasure. Dean turns the stove off, finally turns around.

“I can come back to bed, I spose.” He’s very careful not to answer the question he thinks he’s been asked.

Cas narrows his eyes, considers telling Dean to go and fuck himself, but thinks better of it. He doesn’t want Dean’s pity, but Dean does need the sleep. If that’s the price...

“Good, the bags under your eyes are so dark soon they’ll start absorbing light.”

Dean snorts. “Way to spare my feelings.”

“No-one has feelings this early in the morning, don’t lie.”

Dean full on laughs, strides over and goes to slap Cas on the back. He course corrects as soon as he realises what’s happening, ends up making an awkward flappy hand gesture. Cas looks at him completely and utterly unimpressed, and then turns and stomps back to their room.

*

Dean and Charlie have been back for nearly a week when Sam finally brings it up.

“Not that I mind doing this for you, you know I don’t, Cas – but wouldn’t you rather Dean changed these for you?” He asks in an undertone, when Cas knocks on the bathroom door with fresh bandages.

“No.”

“Am I allowed to ask why?”

“Yes.”

“So, why?”

“I didn’t say I’d answer.” Cas closes the door, locks it.

Sam puts it all together quickly enough.

“You haven’t told him about your back?”

“Correct.”

“Are you going to?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to.”

Sam helps Cas get his shirt off and gets to work on the bandages on his chest. Cas could probably do those himself but he doesn’t. Easier to get Sam to do everything, maybe, or maybe it’s easier not to think about them if he doesn’t look.

Sam examines the wounds carefully as he works. They’re healing at an odd, almost slapdash rate. Some are getting better quicker than he’d have expected, some slower. He’d think it was something to do with angel mojo, but well. Cas is an angelic faraday cage.

“Look, I’m not denying that Dean would be upset, that he’d blame himself – I can understand why you’re doing this.” He says, as he moves onto Cas’s arms. They always leave the big ones to last, work up to it. “But, he’ll find out at some point, and he’ll be more upset that you kept it from him.”

Cas doesn’t answer, but his face is half turned towards Sam, and Sam can see something unpleasant working its way over it. It starts with almost imperceptibly gritted teeth, spreads to a jaw tick and a frown. By the time Sam has finished and they’ve both stood up, ready for Cas’s back to be attended to, Sam knows he’s said something very, very wrong.

“Not everything is about how it makes Dean feel.” Cas says eventually, fingers curled into a slight claw.

“Then what is it about?” Sam can’t help but pry.

“You know what, I’ll sort the rest of these by myself, thank you, Sam.” He turns to grab his clothes to leave and Sam grabs him by the shoulder to stop him.

Oh, shit.

Cas flinches violently in his grip, pulls out of it and stumbles forwards, falling onto the floor. He backs away into the sink, hisses as he jams his back into it but doesn’t move, one hand raised to ward Sam off, eyes wild and terrified.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, Cas.”

“Get out.” Cas groans, low and broken.

“Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“GO!” Cas screams, feet still scrambling for purchase, trying to push himself further away, through the enamel of the sink.

And Sam listens this time, hastily stumbling out and shutting the door. Cas scrambles unsteadily to his feet, throws his weight against the door and pushes the lock shut with trembling fingers before sinking to the floor again, head in hands and shaking.

“Safe. I’m safe.” He mutters to himself. “This is the bunker and I’m safe. No-one can hurt me here.”

_Except the angel in the basement._

“SHUT UP!” He lashes out at the door, succeeds only in jarring his bones and bloodying his knuckles. He focuses on the pain, real honest to god, sharp and present pain. Not itching or burning or desperate howling need. Not the dull ache in his bones or the tired complaints of his withered, useless muscles. It’s unpleasant, but it’s a new kind of unpleasant, not the same old prolonged torturous bullshit. He grits his teeth together to trap the low moan bubbling up his throat.

And then there’s a knock at the door. Soft, gentle. Hideous and jarring and not what he needs right now. He doesn’t need kindness; kindness only makes this feel worse.

“Fuck off.” He manages

“Cas?” Dean’s voice, of course. He can hear worry, verging on panic maybe, but he can’t bring himself to try and salve it.

“Fuck off.” He snaps.

“I’m not gonna do that, buddy.”

“Please.” His voice doesn’t crack.

“Hey, there. I’m gonna stay here, ‘kay. No pressure though, you don’t have to talk to me, but I’m gonna talk to you. Sound good?”

*

Cas doesn’t say anything, which Dean takes to mean that either he’s okay with this, or he’s dead – no fucking not that. No flippant fucking remarks of that tone you cold bastard.

“So, did I ever tell you about the summer dad left me and Sam at Bobby’s? Well, don’t matter anyway, ‘cause you’re about to hear it again, tough shit.

“So Sammy was coming down with this fever, all tired and red and blotchy, and I wasn’t far behind him. Probably worse, even, but whereas he wasn’t shy about letting dad know he wasn’t too hot, I was doing my best to hide it. Anyway, dad didn’t wanna deal with that – couldn’t afford to get sick if he was hunting the demon, y’know, and looking after us would’ve pulled him away from valuable leads. So, he made probably one of the best decisions of his life, after mom and the Impala – and dropped us off with Bobby.

“I know, it doesn’t sound like a feelgood story so far, but just keep listening.

“So, anyway, this fever turned out to be one of those hot and fast 48-hour things and we were both back on our feet for the most part pretty quick. ‘Cept, Bobby just kept forgetting – probably on purpose now I look back – to reach out to John and tell him we were ready to go back on the road.

“At first it was so fucking weird. Every time I tried to pick up a gun or a knife, Bobby’d appear and take it off me with that old scowl. ‘You’re sick, boy. Don’t you go messing with weapons when you’re sick.’ I couldn’t help it, though. I felt so directionless, so much free time and none of it training – I was kinda ashamed. Sam, though, he took it a lot easier, bugging me to play this game and that, come out and throw a ball with him, chase him around and play with army men and all the crap you love to do when you’re little.

“Eventually, with enough cajoling, I stopped picking up the guns. I stopped setting out Sam and Bobby’s breakfast for them. Stopped feeling guilty for not making them both dinner. I ‘spose I started feeling like it was okay to be a kid again.

“Me and Sammy, we played hide and seek in the junkyard this one time, and I didn’t spend the whole time panicking, thinking shit he’s out of my sight he’s gonna get killed. I found the little shit in the boot of an old beat up Corvette. He’d snagged a hunk of rope in the lock so it wouldn’t slam and trap him, thrown a tarp over so I wouldn’t notice it.

“Such a smart little kid, and not just book smart, no matter what I told him. Life smart, too.

“That was one of the best summers of my life.”

“What else did you do?” He hears Cas ask, ever so faintly, hesitantly. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the door, praying _thank fuck that worked_ to whatever gods are listening.

“You mean what _didn’t_ we do?” He teases. “Bobby took us to the beach. That grumpy old bastard who hated leaving his home, hated sand, hated fucking everything about it, drove me and Sam all the goddamn way to a goddamn beach.”

“He drove you from South Dakota to the coast?” Cas asks, and Dean snorts, considers not correcting him and just letting him think Bobby was that awesome.

“No, Dumbo. A lake beach – Triboji beach. Bobby loved us, but a 20 hour drive with two kids. No-one loves anyone that much.

“So, anyway, beautiful sunny day we set off. We had no fucking clue where we were going – and he wouldn’t tell us. Just said to pack up our swimming stuff and shut our faces.

“’Cept we didn’t have any swimming stuff, but we didn’t wanna tell him that in case we ruined whatever we had planned. So we got to the beach in jeans and trainers and nothing better to change into and you shoulda seen his goddamn face. So exasperated, like he’d planned this whole big thing, we’d _travelled_ to get there – and the two idjit boys wanna go swimming in jeans!”

“Did you?”

Dean laughs. “Spoken like someone who has never truly experienced wet denim. Nah, he took us to one of them tourist shops – grumbling the whole time of course – and got us the works, trunks, flip-flops, sunglasses, bucket and spade. All of it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sam so carefree. It was like he was a normal kid again – 100% normal, no lingering Winchester fear or bullshit hanging about him. And I was running up and down the sand with him, because it was fun, not because I was keeping an eye on him. We made fucking sandcastles, we dug great big holes until it was too wet to go any further. We even played a prank on Bobby. He went to piss and we dug a hole under where his towel was, like a little pitfall trap a few inches deep, laid it back over hoping you couldn’t tell.

“And I dunno, it was pretty obvious, sagging in the middle and all, but whether he was humouring us or he just wasn’t paying any attention he sat right down and fell in. Don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard since.”

“Bobby was a good man.” Cas says.

“Yeah, he was.” Unfortunately, that leads Dean right onto the less pleasant part of the story. The part where he gets in a fight with Bobby, runs crying to John and that’s the last he and Sam see of Bobby Singer for a long fucking time.

He’s not gonna tell Cas that bit, though.

“That was probably the best summer of my life.” Dean repeats. “But, gotta be honest, last summer came pretty damn close to topping it.”

He raps two knuckles in turn on the door, and then retreats, like the big fat emotional bomb dropping and then running away coward that he is.


	13. Angst Seeking Missile

Cas ignores his bandage problem for another day, but he knows that’s as long as he can get away with. They should be be looked at every day, really, every other day at a push. The longer he lets this drag on, the more likely they’ll become rancid and infected. And if they get infected, there’ll be no hiding the truth from Dean.

Cas still hasn’t seen the wounds on his back, but he suspects what they are. And even if they’re not what he thinks, they’re still deep, hideous gouge marks carved into his back. Still something Dean doesn’t need to see — for either of their sakes.

He waits until the middle of the day, when Dean is otherwise occupied with Charlie or Sam or something, makes his way to the bathroom and locks the door.

And then he sits on the edge of the bath, winded, for longer than he’s like to admit. He starts with the easier injuries – peels off the tape covering the scrape on his ribs and decides it looks healed enough to go it alone. Others he judges still need a little time, and he carefully cleans them with antibacterial wash, hissing in pain, before he applies fresh wound wrap.

He frets with a bandage on his ankle, cleans it two or three times just in case, removes and reapplies it because it looks like it might be crooked.

Eventually, he can’t put it off any longer. He reaches over his shoulder, grimacing as the stretch aggravates the wounds, and grasps at the top corner of the righthand bandage, pulls it off as quickly as he can. He repeats the process with the other one, and then, shakily, he walks over to the mirror, turns his back to it and looks over his shoulder.

Wings. Cahor gave him wings.

He laughs, a hysterical burst, and then again and again until it makes him dizzy and he has to sit down. He has his wings back. Now if only he could fly.

 _But you can._ That insidious little voice in his head whispers. _You can fly and you can be free of this wanting, itching, burning everything. You can feel grace thrumming through your veins, you can—_

Cas digs a finger into a wound on his arm, grunts in pain.

“Fuck off.” He tells himself, voice still edged with hysteria. “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.” He chants it like a mantra, uses it to hold himself steady until he’s ready to carry on.

The wings aren’t a huge shock. He was expecting something worse, really, from Sam’s at first subtle, and then increasingly obvious attempts to keep them hidden.

He’s half expected words, enochian or English – property of Cahor, or something equally vile.

He supposes, though, that the scars don’t need to heal into words to carry that particular message.

Yet another reason he can’t show Dean.

He squirts the cleaning solution onto his back, winces viciously at the pain. It had never hurt so much when Sam did it, but he supposes Sam was probably gentler, or he watered down the mix, or he was there as a distraction. Now it’s just Cas, his bandages, and his hope that he doesn’t end up biting his tongue off.

Luckily this stuff is a like a giant Band-Aid, no faffing about with holding it in place while trying to wrap gauze around it or anything. Cas had specifically chosen it because it looked like the sort of stuff you could apply by yourself, if the need arose.

Which isn’t to say that it’s easy to apply it to your own back. He has to throw away a few – able to clearly see that the angle is wrong before he’s finished applying it. Eventually, he gets them both done, though – stands, staring in the mirror until his neck starts to crick and his feet ache.

It took him so long to finally look at the goddamn things, they built up so hideous and so disfiguring in his head, that this almost feels like a let-down. In time they’ll heal, and scar, and he might even be able to pass them off for a tattoo, or some deliberate form of modification if someone catches sight of him without his shirt.

They’re the least, of all the things Cahor did to him, and yet he understands why Sam was trying to hide them from him.

They’re big, and symbolistic, and obvious, and when you look at them, you can see evidence of the pain and suffering Cas was put through. To Sam’s mind, they’re a brand, left there to remind Cas who he belongs to.

But they’re not really there for Cas. Cas who can barely make it through a few hours at a time without being reminded what happened to him. Cas who catalogues days by the nagging want in his gut, the twitching of his limbs and the wastage of his body. Cas doesn’t need a reminder, and if he did, it wouldn’t be carved somewhere he couldn’t see it.

This was a gift for Dean, and it’s a gift that Cas has no intention of passing along.

*

Charlie makes her way noisily down the corridor, trying to give Cas plenty of warning wherever he is and whatever he’s doing. She hasn’t been sent by Dean, not officially, and not if you’d asked him, but the faux casual questions on Cas’s whereabouts when Sam came into the room, the twitchiness when he registered it’d been at least two hours since anyone saw the poor guy.

Well, yeah, okay. Charlie is on and unofficial search and rescue before Dean gives himself a hernia. He’d been this close to going himself, she knows, but come on. If Cas is trying to get some privacy the last thing he needs is Dean in angst seeking missile mode. Everyone deserves a few hours to themselves if they want it, no matter how worried it makes their friends and significant others. And it’s not that she thinks Dean doesn’t respect Cas’s privacy, she’s sure he’s very conscientious blah blah blah, but this isn’t usual circumstances and panic is no-one’s friend. Especially not Dean Winchester’s.

She hears the tell-tale click of Cas’s cane – useful that – and hones in on it, whistling “I’m Walking on Sunshine” at an almost obnoxious volume to make sure he’s aware she’s drawing close.

She catches up to him quickly, realising as she gets closer that what she thought was a pattern on the back of his shirt is in fact—

“Cas?” She projects her voice, hoping it doesn’t startle him.

He turns around slowly, and she closes the gap between them at a quick stride – not wanting to run.

“Dude, your back, did you hurt yourself?”

“No, why?”

“There’s blood seeping through your shirt, dude.”

“Shit!” Cas swears, looks around cagily. “Dean isn’t, is he—”

“He’s not here, if you’re asking.”

A little of the tension dribbles out of him, but not much. He’s looking at her warily now, like he thinks she’s about to land him one.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing, just, uh. Please don’t tell Dean what you saw – or Sam.”

“Did they do something?” She doesn’t think they would, not ever, but she has to be sure.

“No. I just, I’d rather this was a secret. From Dean especially.”

Charlie looks at him warily, clocks the fresh bandage on his arm.

“Is a dressing on your back leaking?”

“I’d imagine so, but I can’t be sure without checking.”

“Okay, well come on, let’s go to the bathroom and I’ll check it out.”

“Oh, I uh...”

She recognises that sketchy look. Knows exactly what it means.

“Cas, did you put those bandages on yourself?”

Busted.

“No?”

“Uhuh. And why did you _not_ put those bandages on by yourself.”

“Does it matter?”

“I ‘spose not, but, dude. Do Dean and Sam even know your back is fucked? What if it got infected?”

“Sam knows, Dean doesn’t.”

And there we have it, understanding.

“Sam wants you to tell Dean, doesn’t he.”

Cas shrugs, clearly regrets it if his facial expression is anything to go by.

“Is that why you did it by yourself, because Sam refused?”

Even pissed off at him, Cas can’t find it in himself to throw Sam under the bus with a lie like that.

“No. We argued, I stormed off.” He leaves out the rest, but Charlie isn’t stupid. She saw Sam come flying panicked into the room yesterday, saw him apologise and beg Dean to calm Cas down.

“And instead of coming to me for help, you decided to try and do it yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want my help now?”

“Not really.”

“Are you gonna accept it anyway?”

That gets a smirk out of him.

“Yes, I suppose I will.”

“Excellent choice. And y’know, you idiot, when I said I was there for you – for stuff you can’t go to Sam and Dean for. I didn’t just mean the touchy feely emotional stuff. I meant anything. Changing your dressings, putting cling-film on the toilet ‘cause Dean’s pissing you off, even manipulating Sam into buying junk food. There are some things you can’t go to your boyfriend, or his brother for. Sometimes you need a friend, dude. And I’m around for that.”

This time he doesn’t dismiss her offer, he looks at her and gives a slight smile. And this time, she thinks, he’s actually taking it seriously.

“Thank you, Charlie.”

“It’s fine, Cas,”

“But what?” He can hear it, the comma behind his name. There’s something else coming, and she’s shaky enough to hesitate over it.

“But, Dean will find out eventually.”

Cas shrugs, neither accepting nor denying.

“You can’t wear a t-shirt for the rest of your life, Cas.”

She half expects him to deny, to claim that he can. He doesn’t, though. He meets her gaze firmly, determined.

“No, but I can wear one until this is just scar tissue. Thin white lines instead of open, raw, bleeding flesh.”

“Okay. Yeah, okay.”

“I know you think I’m just setting myself up for more pain, when Dean finally sees it.”

“A little bit.”

“But what you don’t understand is that I don’t care. I’d rather fight with him, I’d rather him be upset that I’ve hidden something from him, than he see me like this.”

He looks so ferocious standing there, pale and thin and drawn but not swaying or showing the slightest sign of fatigue, that she almost laughs. He might be human now, but something angelic clings to him, even in this feeble state. He has his conviction, and she isn’t going to argue.

“It’s your choice, Cas. I get that. You’ve heard what I think, that’s all I’m gonna say.”

“Good.”

“Now, how about we go fix your bandages before you start dripping on the floor, hmm?”


	14. Indoctrinerded

“I’m bored.” Cas complains, throwing the TV remote at Charlie. “Fix it.”

“Dude.” She snorts. “Don’t blame me if you’ve managed to watch all of Netflix, you great slob.”

“I keep falling asleep in the middle of episodes and now I’m behind on everything I want to watch. One of you is hexing me,” he fixes Sam in a beady stare, because Sam is hiding his lap with a book and could be concealing any manner of magical things, “I’m sure of it.”

“Dude, if you wanna catch up on Jessica Jones we don’t mind re-watching a few.” Dean says, without actually confirming this with either of the others. Not that they do mind, but still.

Cas sighs dramatically. “I can’t concentrate.”

“Twitchy hands?” Asks Charlie.

“Yes, how did you know?” He squints at her like he thinks she’s reading his mind somehow.

“Because you literally haven’t stopped moving them for the last three hours.”

“Oh, sorry.” He’s suddenly self-conscious, hadn’t even realised his attempts to relieve his irritation had been noticed.

“It’s no big. You’re not the worst fidget I’ve met.”

“Yeah, Sam spends half the day flicking his hair back and forth.” Dean adds.

Sam flips him the bird without even looking up from his book.

“Ooh. Touchy.” Dean mocks in a falsetto voice, gets no reaction at all this time.

“I can think of a few things that might help.” Charlie says to Cas. “We could get you like a stress ball or something, y’know.”

“I’m sensing an ‘or’ here.” Cas deadpans.

“Or we could get you playing videogames.”

Dean laughs. “Watch out, she’s trying to indoctri-nerd you.”

“Shut up, grandpa Simpson. Games are fun, they help with hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills, and, most importantly, they give those twitchy fingers something to do.”

Cas seems unconvinced, so Charlie pulls out the big guns.

“And hey, it’s better than scrolling through the Netflix menu for the next two hours.”

“Fine, I’m sold.” Cas says, as Dean mouths something that looks suspiciously like _cult_ at him. “Now what do I do?”

“Now my young padawan, you wait while I get the PS4 from my room.”

*

Charlie gets the box set up so quickly Cas wonders if he passed out between blinks. She hands him a controller and walks him through the basics of setting up an account, while Dean, of course, complains.

“I thought you said this was gonna be fun, Charlie?” He gripes like a little kid on a disappointing field trip.

“This is the pre-fun admin. Stop being a dick.”

It takes Cas 5 minutes of hard deliberation, and then one instant of absolute genius to come up with a username. Ex-angelwithashotgun.

And then a moment of pure disappointment when he realises some asshat has taken the name already.

Dean snorts as the error message comes up. “Your taste in music sucks, dude.”

“I don’t like the song, I just thought it was appropriate.”

Dean can’t argue with that.

“Try adding some numbers, Cas.” Charlie suggests.

“Yeah, do 67.”

“No, Dean.” Cas says.

“Okay, how about,” he pauses, winks, “69.”

Charlie throws a pillow at him. “Yeah, because that won’t be taken.”

“Does it matter what number?” Cas asks, twiddling the joystick back and forth across the row of numbers.

“Most people usually go with something significant, like their address, or lucky number or year of birth.”

Cas snorts, adds four zeroes to the end of the username.

“Okay, captain smartass.” Dean rolls his eyes, but there’s affection there.

Cas backspaces, thinks for a bit, and types out 2004. The console accepts it, and that’s that. He glances quickly at Dean, sees him blushing.

“It’s not what you think.” He can’t resist teasing.

“Oh yeah?”

“2004 was an important year, it deserves to be commemorated. For example, it was the year Facebook was invented.”

“And the year the first same-sex marriage in the united states was performed.” Charlie pipes up.

“That, and a new species of human, Homo floresiensis, was discovered in Indonesia.”

“The third Harry Potter film came out.”

“As did Shrek 2.”

“You know what, fuck you both.” Dean pouts.

Charlie grins, bounces over and smushes his cheeks. “Did we upset the widdle sulky-pants.”

“Yes.” Dean says, and even Sam, who’d been trying very hard to ignore them and read his goddamn book, starts laughing.

*

Pre-game admin finally done; Charlie directs Cas to something called the PlayStation store.

“This looks suspiciously like a menu screen.”

“Well, yeah. You gotta pick the game before you can play it.”

Cas groans, and Charlie takes he controller off him.

“Look, I’ll scroll through, you see any names or pictures you like, yell and I’ll tell you a little bit about the game and if I think you’ll like it.”

“You know all the games ever made?” Dean snorts.

“Yes, I do. Now can it, Winchester. That sound good, Cas?”

“Fine. What about that one, the monk with the white hood – Assassins Creed?”

Charlie hisses. “Ooh, bad first choice. Great games, but a few years back they refused to put a female lead in the game because it was ‘too hard’. Friends don’t let friends play games made by misogynist dickbags.”

“Why would it be harder to make a female character than it would a male one?” Cas sounds utterly perplexed. Dean can actually hear the gears whirring in his head.

“Pretty hard to draw a woman if you’ve never actually seen one in real life, Cas.” He chips in with a wink.

Charlie cracks up. “Doesn’t stop a lot of animators trying.”

“I dunno what you mean.” Dean says. “It’s perfectly realistic for Laura Whatsit to go treasure hunting in hot pants.”

“I KNEW YOU WERE A CLOSET NERD!” Charlie shrieks, bouncing up and down on her seat. “You can’t fool me by pretending to get the name wrong.”

Dean laughs. “You wish. This is just crap I’ve picked up from your drunken rants.”

Charlie narrows her eyes, “I have your card marked, Winchester. You can’t fool me.”

She turns back to the menu screen and carries on scrolling down the list.

“That one with the weird face thing – Fallout 4 – what’s the about?” Cas asks.

“That’s a decent game, pretty buggy though, and it gets kinda samey after a while. Although there’s a funny glitch where you end up running around in just your underwear.”

“Why is that funny?”

“Because it’s like prude baggy grandma knickers and a bra, and the game is set in a nuclear wasteland.”

“Sounds interesting.”

Charlie adds it to the basket and carries on scrolling. She offers up a few comments here and there, but Cas doesn’t seem too keen on anything until she gets to the bottom of the list.

“What’s that one, with the white haired guy?”

“Witcher 3? That’s a good game – fun, diverse gameplay, long as fuck and full of cool quests – they’re all unique as well, none like generated by numbers.”

“What’s it _about?_ ”

“This dude who hunts monsters and he’s looking for—”

“Why would he want to hunt monsters in a game when it’s what he does in real life?” Dean asks.

Charlie snorts. “You’ll like the main character, Geralt. He’s as snarky as the two of you put together.”

She downloads the game and starts to exit back to the menu. Something catches Cas’s eye as she does, in the PS3 section.

“What’s Dead Space?”

“Uh, it’s set in space but it’s super hard and there’s like monsters and jump scares and stuff.”

Cas picks up on Charlie’s awkward tone, irritated.

“So not great for someone who still freaks out at loud noises, then?”

“Um, no. Not really.”

Things get really awkward for a moment, but then somehow Dean ‘foot in mouth’ Winchester manages to swoop in and save the day.

“Why’re all these dumb games single player? I’m not just gonna sit here and watch Cas fight frigging zombies or whatever.”

“ _You_ want to play videogames?” Sam looks up from his book to snark.

“More than I want to watch Captain Hand Eye Co-ordination breeze through them without even dying and making it funny, yeah.”

Charlie looks like the goddess Hylia has just descended from on high to bless her with, uh, idk, nerd shit. See, Dean pays attention. Sometimes (kinda).

Everyone’s favourite perky little redhead navigates back to the menu, dives into the multiplayer section. This time she doesn’t stop for suggestions, bouncing straight from Little Big Planet to Plants vs Zombies, to Star Wars Battlefront, and Rocket league.

“The fuck is Rocket League?” Dean asks, sceptically. Sounds like some boring science nerd game. My rocket made it to space faster than your rocket. No thanks.

“It’s like soccer.”

Even worse. At least rockets are cool.

“Boring.”

“But you play it with turbocharged cars.”

“What?”

“Instead of whiny overpaid men, it’s cars.”

“Well that’s dumb.” He decides, despite being a little, tiny bit curious.

“No one asked you.” She scoffs, exchanging a glance with Cas, who is trying very hard not to laugh at Dean’s put out scowl.

She carries on flipping through the options, adding Dynasty Warriors, Borderlands, Rayman Legends, and Lego Marvel Superheroes to the download queue.

“Lego is for children.” Dean interrupts again.

“Just because you can’t perve over Black Widow in the Lego version.” Sam scoffs, clearly having given up all attempts to read his book.

“First of all, fuck you, and second of all, I’ve seen the way you look at Thor.”

“Dude, I _was_ Thor.”

Charlie and Cas exchange glances.

“Do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Charlie asks.

Cas shakes his head slowly, a little bit for sarcasm and a little bit because jerky movements = pain.

“Quick, load a game and maybe we won’t end up getting drawn into it.” He suggests.

“Good idea.” She hands him a controller and goes to the download queue to check they have to work with. “Dude, your Wi-Fi is _insane_. There’s only a few left to download – they all should have taken hours. How did you even get this place hooked up - do you have fibre, or copper, or what?”

Cas blinks at her a few times. “I understood every word you used there, but somehow when you strung them together they became utterly meaningless.”

Charlie goes to slap him playfully on the shoulder and he flinches away.

“Oh god, sorry, I’m—”

“Forget about it.” Cas dismisses, determined not to linger on it. Lingering makes it worse. “What game are you putting on?”

“Little Big Planet 3. It’s super multiplayer so even Liam and Noel Gallagher over there will be able to jump in when they’re done arguing.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

Charlie makes a contemplative noise as she pulls up the game and then tuts as it starts installing. She always forgets about the install time. “So it’s not all pop culture then, just TV and films?”

“And books.”

“But not music?”

“I, um, no. I don’t think so.”

“So Metatron didn’t consider songs to be stories.”

“I guess not.”

“What about poetry?”

“Why do you care?”

Charlie shrugs. “Sue me, I’m interested in what the” she waggles her fingers dramatically, “ _scribe of God_ considers a real story.”

“He has terrible taste, even for an angel, I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“Oh yeah?” She senses something juicy here.

“He mostly enjoyed pulp romance novels. When he stripped me of my grace he told me to go and find a wife, get married and bring him back a ‘story’.”

“That’s definitely a line stolen from a film or TV show or something.”

“Many, it’s a common theme. But he was, in particular, inspired by a Phillip Pullman book.”

She thinks for a moment.

“Oh, the Subtle Knife, with the harpies?”

“The Amber Spyglass, actually, but yes.”

“Dude, you’re like an encyclopaedia of stolen quotes. This could be handy. Imagine the fun you’d have on the internet.”

“I wish. Every new thing I learn pushes something old out. You humans have disappointing memories.”

“Us humans, amigo. Us humans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s funny when I wrote this chapter back in 2016 everyone was obsessed with the Witcher and now its 2020 and we’re all back on our Geralt bullshit. 
> 
> Also I know AC has had some female protagonist recently and I played and enjoyed Odyssey :o but again, this chapter was written in and set vaguely around 2016.


	15. It’s All Fun and Games

“These graphics are much more realistic than I expected.”

Cas wasn’t sure what he was expecting, it wasn’t photorealistic humans.

Charlie cracks up. “This is an FMV, dude. The game hasn’t started yet.”

Cas harrumphs. “Well, that’s just false advertising.”

*

“Why am I am brown blob? Can I change the colour?”

“No, Cas. There are other, um, sackpeople later, though. Oh, and you can put different accessories on him.”

“But I’ll still be a brown blob underneath.”

“Yes, Cas. You’ll still be a brown blob.”

*

“Cas.”

“Yes?”

“You can stop bobbing his head up and down now.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Please, dude. Please start the game.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

*

Dean hears a familiar voice and perks up, turning his attention back to the TV.

“Dude, is that Hugh Laurie, are you playing as Hugh Laurie?”

“Nah, just talking to him.” Charlie says, at the same time as Sam laughs.

“Why the fuck do you care about Hugh Laurie?”

“What? I like medical dramas. House is great.”

“House is a misogynist.”

Dean deflates a little. “Yeah, but he’s a horrible nasty prick to everyone, so that kinda makes it—”

“If you say okay, Dean, I’m gonna kick your ass with my special magical Oz obtained powers.” Charlie warns.

“I was gonna say even. Anyway, I didn’t mean I liked the dude, I just meant he was interesting.”

“Adequate rollback, Dean. I’ll take it.” Charlie teases with a wink.

“I thought you only watched Dr Sexy for the “hot nurses”, Dean?” Sam scoffs. “I didn’t realise you were just that big a fan of campy medical dramas.”

“Shut up and read your book, Samantha.”

“I would if you’d all be quiet for more than three consecutive seconds.”

“We have a library for reading. This is the room for being loud and obnoxious.” Cas cuts in. “Now are you two going to join us or are you going to carry on bickering over all the dialogue?”

Sam and Dean exchange glances, shrug, and then both nod.

“Yeah, why not.”

Charlie throws them both a controller each.

“Playtime, boys.”

There’s a very dangerous look in her eye. Dean anticipates nothing but pain.

*

The game stops when Dean’s stomach lets out a rumble so loud it can even be heard over the sound of swearing and good-natured threats to end the Winchester line for perpetuity if Sam “butterfingers” Winchester manages to single-handedly use up all of their shared lives one more goddamn time.

Dean hits pause.

“S’been a while since breakfast. Sue me.”

Three expectant pairs of eyes turn on him and he doesn’t say anything, wondering if maybe he can wait long enough that they’ll give up, or maybe one of them will— no, Sam’s broken out his puppy dog eyes, and Cas doesn’t even need to guilt Dean into wanting to nurture him. Dude’s all pointy and emaciated and sometimes Dean fucking forgets and then it hurts to look at him again.

“Fine!” He throws his hands up, pantomime annoyed. “Lunch for four coming up, you ungrateful bastards.”

“We’re very grateful.” Charlie pipes up. “Aren’t we, guys.”

“So grateful.” Sam and Cas echo, nodding with wide, innocent eyes. The assholes.

Cas stands up unsteadily. “I can help.”

“Nah.” Dean dismisses easily. “You stay here and keep these two out of trouble. You’re carrying the game, dude. I couldn’t take away the best player.”

He ignores Charlie’s squawk of indignation.

“They’ll be fine. I want to help, Dean.”

“No it’s—”

Charlie kicks him very hard in the shin and he flashes back to a _Very Important Conversation_ about not babying Cas and treating him with respect when he wants to do something.

“Actually, yeah.” Dean course corrects. “Okay, c’mon. You can keep me company, maybe I’ll teach you a thing or two as well.”

*

Cas settles himself down comfortably on a chair near the cooker, watches as Dean bustles about grabbing ingredients and implements.

“What’re you making?” He asks eventually, unable to piece it together from the clues.

“Tomato bacon pasta, because it is easy and I cannot be fucked.” Dean winks at him.

“Legitimate reasons.” Cas confirms.

“Yup. Now, are you feeling up to chopping the onions or are you only here for moral support?”

“Why do I have to do the vegetable that fights back?” Cas pouts.

“Hey, you said you wanted to help.”

Cas snorts his displeasure, but takes the onion and starts to chop it into even pieces. Predictably enough, his eyes start streaming within moments, and, because this is the life he lives and any moment of calm is but an interlude to soften him up for the next jagged torment, it triggers one of his coughing fits.

He doubles over, drawing in great agonising breaths that make his back ache with fresh agony as it pulls at his wounds.

“Hey, you okay?” Dean hovers, hand floating uncertainty over Cas’s back, unsure of whether he should touch or not.

There are white spots dancing over Cas’s eyes, and although he can hear Dean he feels detached, like a voice on the radio. He can tell the tone is getting increasingly panicked but he can’t parse the words and even if he could he can’t stop coughing long enough to say anything and his eyes are stinging and he needs to get out of here but he can’t stand.

He tries anyway, stumbles and drops down to the floor.

“CAS?!”

Dean sounds terrified now, but it’s better down here on the floor, the air isn’t as thick and he can open his eyes now, sort of, just about.

Gradually the coughing subsides and he can see Dean, white faced and frantic, torn between staying here and going for help

“Sorry.” Cas rasps. “M’back in the room.”

Colour returns to Dean’s face. Not all, but a little.

“Jesus, fuck. You okay?”

“Mostly.” Cas tries for levity, even knowing it’s probably not the right response. As confirmed by the pinch between Dean’s brows. “Sorry, for worrying you. It’s nothing.”

Dean scrubs his hand over his face, sits down from where he was balanced precariously on his haunches. “Jesus, Cas. You don’t have to apologise. What was that – are you okay?”

Bitterness snarls in Cas’s throat, pushes out words that he immediately regrets. “That was nothing. That’s normality for me now.”

“Jesus, fuck. I can’t, that’s.”

Dean can’t get the words out, the searing simmering panic he had been feeling now souring in his guts, fermenting into something else. Helpless rage. At himself, at Sam, at the situation and every damn little thing that aligned to put them in this position. Everything that slowed him down on the road and gave that fucking maniac an extra minute to use against Cas.

At everyone and everything, except Cas, folded on the floor and looking so fucking fed up. Not hurt or scared or angry. Just tired of the goddamn shitstorm of a situation that is his life now and that apparently Dean keeps accidentally throwing him back into. He shouldn’t have listened to Charlie, or he should have given Cas a job that wouldn’t blind him or irritate his lungs or

“FUCK!”

Dean smashes his fist into the cabinet beside them, savouring the feeling of wood splintering under his fist. He would have carried on swinging too, desperate for a release, for some way to externalise this guilty fucking helpless blame welling up in his chest.

Except Cas flinches. Cas flinches away from Dean, because of Dean, and it’s like every fucking cold shower he’s ever had crashing down on him at once and extinguishing everything but cold, dirty shame.

“Oh god.” Too loud, he needs to whisper, not make this worse. “Fuck, I’m. Fuck Cas, I’m so fucking sorry I can’t—”

Cas cuts him off with a bitter laugh. “Welcome to the new me.” There’s a look in his eyes that Dean half recognises, but not from this face. Not from this version of Cas. It terrifies him, and not just because of what it might mean for Cas.

Zachariah’s apocalyptic version of Cas had been bitter too. More bitter than this, yeah, but god, they still have time to get there. To get to the place where every word out of Cas’s mouth is carefully weighed and measured, only allowed out if it’s barbed enough to burrow into Dean’s side and make him bleed.

A shadow of that same mad look is in Cas’s eye, that look that says I’m in pain and I want to inflict it on everyone around me. And Dean knows that isn’t who Cas is now, knows that he’s triggered something with his stupid fucking thoughtless actions and he can’t trust what Cas says next. If he was in his right mind he wouldn’t say whatever it is he’s about to come out with. It’s just like when Cas asked for drugs. It won’t mean anything; he can’t hold onto it. He can’t believe it.

“I _hate_ this. Being human is torture.” Cas snarls out, shaking with what Dean figures is rage. His mouth opens and shuts and it’s clear he’s struggling to say something else, or to swallow it down. Dean isn’t sure which, until he sees the tears streaming down Cas’s face and he knows they haven’t got shit to do with the onions he was cutting.

Dean doesn’t know what to do. If this was before it’d be easy. He could just fucking hold Cas until he calmed down, try and soothe him with physical touch – which never lets Dean down the same way words do.

Now, though, he has no right to touch Cas. He was the one who did this – even if it was a careless accident. He has no right to be anywhere near Cas, but he can’t leave him on his own, either.

_Being human is torture_

He means the addiction; he means the pain.

He doesn’t mean everything.

Right?


	16. Fear, Murky and Thick

Cas almost chokes on the words as they come out of his mouth. He doesn’t fucking mean it, except maybe he does. Some of it, all of it. Whatever. He’s spiralling out of control, unable to stop the words spewing free from his tongue. He’s so fucking angry, ashamed and all the rest – and Dean is the only person here that he knows he can hurt as much as he’s hurting himself. And he doesn’t want to do that, but he can’t stop himself.

 _He hurt you._ The bullshit voice whispers. _He doesn’t care. Wound him back, send him spinning._

He bites down on his tongue so hard it brings tears to his eyes, and that’s it, like the first trickle of snow that wakes the avalanche, he’s sobbing uncontrollably. The urge to lash out at Dean gutters and dies and that’s one small mercy to the fact that he’s crying and he can’t seem to make it stop.

Even the most basic of controls he had over this ridiculous human shell are shot to bits and he wants and he wants and he doesn’t even know what he wants. He wants drugs, he wants Dean to hold him but he doesn’t want Dean anywhere near him and he doesn’t know how to handle all of these emotions. He’s tired and wrung out and he just wants things to be okay, to be easy and casual again. He wants to live in a moment not waiting for the next punch in the gut. He wants things to be easy, but he knows they won’t ever be easy again. This is his life now and he hates it he hates it he hates it.

Eventually he slumps back against the counter, nearly to the floor. He’s worn himself out even past base emotions and pointless sobbing – still angry, still resentful, but spent. He’s barely able to do more than just lean there and tremble.

Every muscle in his body aches, the dull throb in his back is thickening and there are pins and needles lancing up and down every nerve. He feels like a flayed limb, exposed and raw.

“Cas, buddy.” Dean sounds nearly as wrecked as Cas feels, but it doesn’t give him any satisfaction. He knows that, knew that. He tried to punish him anyway, though, just in case. “Can – can I touch you; would that help?”

It takes everything Cas has to respond, the words heaving up out of his throat like bile. He only does it because of the fear, murky and thick, that Dean is either going to touch him, or abandon him. He can’t face either right now, can already feel the phantom brush of Dean’s fingers skittering along his nerves like static electricity and it’s too much. The real thing would short-circuit him.

“Not right now.” Cas rasps. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m sorry, don’t leave me. Stay, please.” It’s easier to talk in short, staccato sentences. A rattle of breath.

*

The way Cas asks hits Dean, deep. Like he expects to have to beg for Dean to not abandon him here on the floor – when all Dean fucking wants to do is stay here and make sure he’s okay, no matter whether Cas can bear to be touched by him or not.

He supposes it’s to be expected. He tried to run away before. Fuck, everyone else was always doing it, seemed like it might be about time for him to get a shot in. But he didn’t follow through, and he thought that’d mean things were okay, but here he is, sitting on the floor with Cas and this is a lot his goddamn fault. Charlie wouldn’t have punched the cupboard, Sam wouldn’t either. Just good old Dean.

God, but he wants a beer. Not even to drink, just to busy his hands with. To hold and stop temptation from making him reach for the crumpled figure Cas cuts on the floor.

“Hey, buddy. M’not going anywhere, okay? Not unless you want me to.”

Cas doesn’t respond, but some of the panic seems to drip out of him, eyes a little less wild. Dean’ll take that.

*

When Cas eventually pulls himself back to something approaching normal he looks up at Dean, crouching in front of him and doing a very bad job of hiding his terror, and apologises with a lopsided smile.

“I’m sorry for what I said, Dean. I didn’t mean it I was just...” He trails off, able to grasp the word he wants but somehow not able to force it past his teeth.

“Lashing out. Yeah. I get it.” A shaky sigh, and then he carries on. “But dude, you don’t have anything to apologise for.” He sounds almost horrified that Cas would even try.

Cas just shrugs in response.

“I hate this.” Dean says, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I wish I could make it right. I wish I could fucking reverse time and get taken in your place.”

“No.” Cas says slowly. “You don’t.”

Dean laughs then, devoid of any mirth. “Cas, you know me. You fucking know how much I mean that.”

And Cas does, that’s the problem.

He struggles to his feet, accepting Dean’s helping hand but still wincing visibly at the touch.

“It’s not you.” He tells Dean, because he knows he would have noticed. “It’s anyone. Sam or Charlie would distress me just as much.”

“Yeah.” Dean says, but Cas can see what he’s thinking, that Sam or Charlie wouldn’t have scared him into this state in the first place. Maybe, maybe not. Cas is fed up of hypotheticals. His now and present takes up enough energy as it is.

“If you could help me to the bedroom, I’d appreciate it. I, I think I’d like to be alone for a while.” He knows that will hurt Dean’s feelings, but, right now, he honestly hasn’t the strength to care.

“Oh yeah, of course.”

*

Cas lets go of Dean’s arm once he reaches the bedroom, slowly shuffles towards the bed in a clear dismissal. Dean takes it, but can’t help pausing for a moment first.

“Cas, I’m sorry—”

“Dean, please.” Cas says through gritted teeth. He can’t do this right now, he wants space, peace and quiet. Or at least he needs breathing space away from Dean’s fear and love and sad, expectant gaze.

“Yeah, gotcha, sorry.” Dean retreats, closing the door softly behind him.

Cas expects to feel relieved – or guilty, or some convoluted tangle of the two. Expects to feel some emotional consequence for his actions, for treating Dean like a punching bag and then kicking him out of his own room.

He just feels tired.

*

Dean shuts the door to his and Cas’s room and doesn’t know where to go, what to do. He fucked up, he fucked up so hard and now Cas is shaky and alone in their bed because he can’t handle Dean being close to him right now.

His hand hesitates over the door, ready to knock and see if he should send in Charlie or Sam – but his curled fist won’t move, his wrist locked rigid.

Cas wants to be left alone, he doesn’t like loud noises, and Dean’s right fist has done enough damage for today.

With a sigh he lets it fall to his side, retreats to his home away from home – the kitchen. He was supposed to be making food, anyway.

He finishes chopping the onions, taking extra care to make the pieces equal, focusing intently on a task that should only take a few minutes. It doesn’t help, he can still feel the looming presence of the fridge in the corner.

Or, more accurately, what’s inside it.

He needs a goddamn drink, needs one so bad that his throat feels dry and cracked and he can barely swallow. That’s the only reason he wants it, he doesn’t have a problem – he just wants a nice, cold, refreshing beer because he’s thirsty.

_So have a fucking glass of orange juice. Or a water. You alcoholic bastard._

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, like if he does it aggressively enough that asshole voice will lose its grip and fall out of his ears and leave him the fuck alone. When he opens his eyes the fridge is open and he isn’t sure he remembers moving over there but it’s okay he’s just gonna have one drink, one to soothe things over. That doesn’t make him a bad person.

His fingers close around the bottle and down it goes. The first one he chugs in a few seconds, the second one goes like that too. The third he nurses, aware that there’s only one left after that. Who buys four packs these days, anyway. Bullshit.

He sips at his drink as he fries up the bacon, adding the onions, herbs and tomatoes and turning the heat down so it can slowly reduce into a sauce. He can feel some kind of phantom relief as he goes, too early to be the actual booze, more like fucking sense memory. Blurriness is coming and relief and that easy slip-slide of your thoughts that makes all the bad things a little less consequential.

 _Thought you were just thirsty._ He picks up the fourth bottle and cracks it open, hoping the welcoming hiss will drown out that fucking voice. No such luck, of course.

_Just like your father, diving headfirst into a bottle as soon as things get hard – abandoning the people who need you._

He swallows down the urge to pitch the glass across the room. His violent impulses have done enough goddamn damage for today. It’s a struggle, he’s not sure he remembers how to express his emotions in a healthy way. He’d been trying, been doing his best to learn – but really, what’s a few months of trying to grow into a real person verses a lifetime of booze and violence.

He only makes it halfway through the last bottle before what he’s doing catches up to his rational mind. The liquid turns suddenly in his stomach and he can taste bile on his tongue and he knows he only has moments to get to the sink before he throws up.

“Dean?” He looks up at Charlie from his position hunched over the sink. His stomach is empty but he’s still fucking retching because why not. Maybe if he keeps at it long enough he can puke the self-disgust out. ‘Cause Cas is sitting shivering in their fucking room because of Dean, and Dean is out here getting drunk and trying to ignore what a godawful fucking person he is.

Charlie rushes over, brushes a hand through Dean’s hair to comfort him. She’s seen Dean throw up enough times, knows what to do. Ain’t that the kicker. He doesn’t deserve her fucking sympathy though.

“What happened?”

He snorts, backs away from her and straightens up, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. He thinks the worst is over, and if it’s not he can just jerk back to the sink.

“Momentary lapse of sobriety.” He quips wearily. “Fine now.”

Charlie sighs. “You wanna—”

“No.”

“You know that wasn’t a question, Dean. What happened?”

“What always happens. I fucked up, I tried to salve that fuckup with booze. And then apparently I felt so guilty I upchucked the whole lot. Which is new.”

“Where’s Cas?”

“Alone, away from me. Best place for the poor bastard.”

“Dean—”

“I keep doing this, Charlie.”

“Everyone makes mistakes.”

“I don’t see you or Sam scaring Cas into a fucking panic attack over—”

“I haven’t been alone with him for long enough to do anything, and I dunno if you’re forgetting, but Sam freaked him out so badly that he locked himself in the bathroom until you managed to talk him down.”

“Great, so we’re both fucking traumatising him. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m just pointing out that it’s taking everyone time to get used to his new limitations. We’re dumb humans and Cas is, well it’s easy to forget when he’s snarking back at you or threatening to curse your family for seven generations that he’s not quite as robust as he used to be. Shit, I nearly punched him on the shoulder the other day – I only didn’t ‘cause he flinched away.”

She’s making sense, but Dean isn’t ready for easy forgiveness. He wants to be made to suffer.

“He’s been through enough without my goddamn carelessness fucking him over.”

“Yeah, he has. But I can guarantee you two things, first, you won’t ever do what you did again, and two, he’s already forgiven you.”

Dean makes a disparaging face, and she hits him in the arm, hard enough to hurt. Not that she thinks she can beat the emotional idiocy out of him, but, well. It’s worth a fucking shot, isn’t it.

“You’re not going to do it again, are you?”

It’s not really a question, but he answers anyway. “Of course not.”

“So there you go.”

He snorts. “So what. Didn’t stop me from diving straight for the bottle the minute things got rough.”

Charlie laughs guiltily. “Um, yeah, about that...”

“What?” Dean doesn’t like her tone. Not. One. Bit.

“Don’t get mad...”

“When has telling someone that _ever_ made them less mad, Charlie. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Itwasn’trealbeeritwasnonalcoholic.” She blurts out in one breath.

“Slower.”

“It wasn’t real beer – look at the label – it was non-alcoholic.”

“You bought non-alcoholic beer?!”

“It’s not my fault.” She’s still talking at a mile a minute, all frantic hand gestures and nervous, darting eyes. “Sam picked it up as a joke, but then I thought hey, actually, maybe that’s not such a bad idea? Because okay, drinking isn’t the problem, it’s the situation. A social beer to relax, y’know, fine. It’s the desperate, kill myself with booze kind that’s the bad one. And fake beer and real beer look similar, but different enough that if you were in your right mind you’d notice but if you were wigging out you probably wouldn’t and it’d save you from getting fucked up and doing something you’d regret later and—”

Dean cuts her off with a sharp noise. “I can’t believe you brought non-alcoholic beer into my goddamn home.”

Charlie grimaces. “It seemed like a good idea—”

“And I can’t believe I’m fucking grateful to you for it.” He snorts. “Shame it all ended up down the drain.”

“Yeah, I was pretty surprised when I saw you throwing it up.”

Dean shrugs. “So what happened to the whole cold turkey approach?”

“Huh?”

“When you were rattling off at a million words a minute, you said something about beer to relax being fine. Change of tune.”

Charlie sighs. “That was different. Look, I don’t think you’re actually an alcoholic, okay?”

“Huh.”

“You don’t wake up every day and need a drink or else, but that doesn’t mean your relationship with booze isn’t way unhealthy. You use it as a crutch, when things get bad. Doesn’t mean you need to quit altogether – you just need to train yourself out of that one bad habit.”

“Huh.”

He’s not saying much, and it’s making Charlie nervous.

“If you wanna go clean living then that’s up to you – I’m just saying I don’t think you _have_ to.”

“Hardly fair to Cas if I don’t, is it? Me getting to sit there drunk off my ass while he’s suffering.”

“I don’t agree.” Dean crosses his arms, his best sceptical _try me_ expression painted across his face. Charlie ignores him and perseveres. “That’s like saying you won’t smoke around someone because they’re on a diet. They’re totally separate things. Unless you’re planning on whipping out a needle and shooting up in front of him, I don’t think there’ll be a problem. I mean, he can still drink – although we should probably hold off on that until he’s a little recovered.”

“Yeah...”

“But that’s just my opinion. You know who’ll definitely be able to tell you if it’s okay – Cas.”

Dean huffs out a laugh at that. “You make it sound so easy.”

“That’s because it is, you great repressed lump.”

Dean’s learning to ignore this kind of insult. Everyone needs a pressure valve, especially living as much in each other’s pockets as they do here. Sam’s is running, Cas’s is aggressive snark, the less said about Dean’s the better, and Charlie’s is apparently calling him out on his emotional foot in mouth disease.


	17. Sam Considers a Career in the Diplomatic Service

Dean dumps a bowl of steaming hot pasta outside his and Cas’s room, slips a note under the door with it. Hopefully even if he doesn’t smell it, he’ll still notice the paper before it gets cold. Dean doesn’t want to knock, and his first bright idea of sending a text had been scuppered when he remembered that Cas’s phone is in a bin somewhere, smashed and bloody. He’ll have to talk to Sam about getting him a new one – something fancy, with lots of gadgets and features and crap. Band-Aid over a bullet wound, or bribery or whatever you wanna call it, but fuck it. If he can’t fix the big things, he can at least offer some small shit like this.

He delivers Charlie and Sam’s meals to the living room, resists their attempts to get him to stay and chow down with them. He returns to the kitchen instead, putters helplessly about and ignores his own steaming bowl. He finds a berocca in the back of the cupboard, checks the date. Still good. He dissolves it in a glass, watches it fizz and then stirs endlessly around until even the finest grain has dissolved. He carries it back to his and Cas’s room, leaves it next to the pasta. He vaguely remembers hearing Sam say that vitamins were bullshit, that you get enough from your food and it doesn’t matter, but hey, he figures Cas could use all the help he can get on his road to recovery – and if he won’t eat a full meal, a drink might be a bit more manageable.

That thought sparks something, and Dean makes his way back to the kitchen, sits down in front of his bowl and drags over the laptop, boots it up. He chews absentmindedly while it loads, and then types one handed into google; _muscle wastage starvation exercises help._

*

Dean surfaces a few hours later, when Sam taps him on the shoulder. He starts violently, lurching around and only barely relaxing when he realises it’s Sam.

“Jesus, fuck!”

“Sorry, I did call, like four times. You were pretty out of it.”

“Yeah, and what?”

Sam leans back, a little thrown by Dean’s aggressive defensiveness, but he doesn’t challenge it. Charlie had warned him that Dean was feeling a little tense. Okay, not exactly the phrasing she’d used, but it had been the vague sort of gist.

“Looking at anything interesting?”

Dean’s hackles go down a little and he flicks a glance between Sam and the laptop, considering.

“Yeah, actually.” He surprises Sam, who’d expected caginess and evasion. “Thought I’d try and help Cas for once instead of fucking him over.”

Sam purses his lips at the self-directed dig, but doesn’t call Dean out on it. He doesn’t want to start an argument and derail one of the first freely given bits of information Dean’s ever felt inclined to share. Turns out Dean isn’t going to play that game though, and there are a few awkward beats of silence. Which, great, now it looks like Sam was fucking agreeing with him about being a bastard. Swear to Christ, after navigating the emotional pitfall traps of his blood relatives Sam reckons he’d make an excellent fucking foreign diplomat. Russia ain’t got nothing on Dean Winchester in a huff with himself and looking to contort you into punishing him.

“Cas is lucky to have you.”

Dean snorts disparagingly, but at least he takes the cue to continue.

“I was looking for like exercises and stuff, y’know, to help get him back up to himself.”

He sounds awkward, like he expects the idea to get torpedoed, but it won’t, not by Sam, anyway.

*

Dean shoots his idea huffily to somewhere around Sam’s chest, not wanting to look up and see the dumb disparaging look on his face, aww poor Dean and his shitty ideas. No doubt the silence will just drag on and on until Sam comes up with some gentle let down and then Dean can sulk off to bed or whatever. He’s rehearsing his kickbacks – I don’t mean we should like set him up on a running track or have him do a goddamn marathon, just like small exercises to get some muscle strength back along with the meat on his bones.

“That’s a great idea, Dean. Like proper physical therapy.” He looks at Sam’s face, surprised to see that he’s got a grin on him that could power a goddamn nuclear reactor.

“Yeah?”

“It’s a shame we can’t take him to an actual doctor, get him a proper, proscribed course or anything.”

“I uh, investigated that avenue. Thought about getting Charlie to like, hack him onto a health plan or summit.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, but too many questions still, y’know. Long term care crap like that, it’s too risky that he’d get discovered, no matter how careful she is. And the needle marks and stuff – they’d probably want to take him into rehab.”

“Which would leave him alone and vulnerable.”

“Yeah. Plus, what the fuck is he supposed to say in group therapy.”

Dean covers his very real fear – at the idea of Cas weak and helpless and away from them – with a joke. Sam gives it the mostly mirthless snort of acknowledgement that it deserves, and then carries on thinking aloud.

“Obviously we’d have to start small, maybe with stress balls or something to tune up the strength in his hands.” He seems to have forgotten that Dean has spent half the night researching this, too lost in his eagerness to delve into his two favourite things, being a massive fucking nerd, and being a scary fitness freak. Dean shouldn’t have bothered with all this research, should have just dangled the idea in front of Sam and let him run with it. “You know what, we should reach out to Donna and Jody. I bet the police deal with stuff like this all the time. Not like, y’know, as bad as this. But still, recovering from injuries.”

“Huh.” Hadn’t even occurred to Dean. See, this is why he should leave the bullshit to Sam.

“Can I have a look at your notes, catch myself up so we’re at the same place?”

“Oh, uh.” And now he feels like a fucking idiot. He hadn’t been making notes. He was just reading around, trying to learn what he could. He admits as much to Sam, expects to be chastised.

“I kept open any interesting pages though, so uh, I guess you could skim through those.”

“Excellent. Do you mind if I snag the laptop – you probably need a break anyway, right? I can see you rolling your shoulders like you’ve been sitting there hunched for too long. And you’ve got like a hundred tabs open.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure. Go ahead.” Sam’s right, his back aches from leaning over and he can feel the beginning of a headache probing ominously at the base of his skull.

Sam leans over, fiddles with a setting at the bottom of the computer before taking it.

“This helps as well.” He says, as the light on the screen fades from a bright white to a sort of incredibly pale, ambient pink. “Red light is less annoying on the eyes; you’ll be able to read more.”

He looks so proud, like he’s relishing the chance to show off his nerdy skills to Dean and not get mocked for it. Dean lets him have it. “Yeah, cool.” He acknowledges, then dismisses himself. “So, uh. I’ll let you get to, y’know.”

Sam scoops up the laptop and retreats off to his room. Dean stays leaning against the table for a moment, wrestling with conflicting emotions. Sam’s offering to help him, it shouldn’t feel like he’s scooping a fucking project out from under Dean’s feet. This isn’t a cool classic car he’s rebuilding, it’s Cas’s goddamn health and future wellbeing. Sam being enthusiastic doesn’t fuck Dean over. It just helps Cas.

He looks at his watch, sighs. No wonder Sam was up and looking so bright and refreshed. It’s a little after the bastard's usual getting up time – or fucking ass o’clock in the morning as it’s known by everyone sane in the goddamn bunker. Figures. Dean’s just being a toddler about this because he’s tired. Not because he’s a bad person.

Yeah, right.

*

Dean putters awkwardly around the kitchen for a little longer, loathe to go to bed dispute the fact that he can suddenly feel the exhaustion like a physical ache. Going to bed means making a decision, to bother Cas or to leave him alone.

Like it’s a choice, really though. They do this at Cas’s pace, or not at all. Dean’s gotta mould himself into some kind of personal space vampire. He gets invited or he can’t pass the threshold.

He finds himself meandering towards their room anyway, just to check. The door’s open so he peeks in at Cas. He’s lying curled up in the sheets, frowning like he’s about to start a fight with the blanket. In no world does he look cute – he looks pissed off and a little bit fucking constipated – and yet, Dean stands there and looks at him with this little half smile, caught by how adorable he is. It hits him in a rush, and he suppresses the brief panicky flare that makes him want to turn away, start a fight or choke down a steak or just anything manly and tough to balance it out. He knows he shouldn’t feel like he has to compensate for that shit, but the old habit lingers on, a long worn track only barely grown over, easy to find and re-tread.

The food he left out for Cas is sat on his bedside table, barely touched, but the glass is empty. Baby steps. The vitamins must do him some good, ‘specially if he’s barely eating. Plus dude can’t be getting any vitamin C – or is it D? The sunshine one, not the one you get from fruit. Anyway, whichever it is, he can’t be getting enough of it, cooped up in this dark, windowless place.

He stands and watches Cas for a little bit longer, like the big fat fucking perve he is, suppresses a little laugh when Cas flings an arm out towards Dean’s side of the bed, does a little disgruntled “hrmph” when his arm hits the mattress.

“Dreaming about smacking me across the face, buddy?” he mouths in an undertone, so quiet he can barely hear it himself. “Charming.”

_Not like you wouldn’t deser—_

He clicks his teeth together, trying to cut off the voice. The noise disturbs Cas slightly, as he tosses again, and Dean beats a hasty retreat before sleeping beauty wakes up and he gets caught standing there like a dickhead. He shuts the door gently behind him.

Time to see how comfy this sofa bed is.


	18. Ah, Humanity

Cas sits on the bed for a long while after Dean leaves the room, staring idly at his right hand. It shakes, worse than the left one for some reason. Right now it’s almost comically bad – if he did the paper test (a game Sam had shown him once, years back, before he realised angels didn’t have muscle tremors that a sheet of paper could display) the thing would probably vibrate so aggressively it’d generate a draft.

With a sigh he folds the hand against his chest and wonders what now. The tension of Dean’s presence hasn’t faded with his absence, as Cas expected it to. It’s still there, gnawing away – adrenaline and other chemicals, things he used to regard with such detached curiosity but is now forced to observe and suffer from the trenches of humanity. It’s like his body is pitching a biological war against itself. Pointless, unhelpful.

Ah, humanity.

Exhaustion and physical irritation snipe away inside him, rolling around in a close fought brawl, each trying to usurp the other and gain dominance and succeeding only in making Cas generally miserable. Too tired to sleep, Sam had once called it. Cas had scoffed at the time, but he’s come recently to realise that it is, in fact, a genuine thing. Sam had pushed through it, cured the restless ache with coffee and carried on moving until he was too tired to do anything but collapse into sleep. Cas wants to try that route, but he suspects that in his present state, the sudden injection of caffeine might stop his heart. Which would be a shame, after all it’s been through.

“Here lies Castiel, fought through countless apocalypses and heinous torture. Met his end at the hands of a hot beverage.”

Not that he’d have a gravestone for that to be inscribed on, anyway. There’s a hunter’s funeral in his future, somewhere. Ashes to ashes. He wonders who’ll be there to light the pyre – can’t decide whether he hopes it’ll be Dean or not. It’s not that he wants Dean to die before he does – he wants, more than most things, for Dean to live a long and happy life. It’s just, he’s seen what happens to Dean when death claims the people he’s bound himself to.

He tries to stop thinking about it, focus on something else instead. But there’s only one other thing here, really, to focus on, and the minute his internal monologue runs out of steam he feels it start to throb. If he’d thought that the silence would help calm him down, level things out, he drastically misjudged. Junkie rule number one, empty time is your enemy. That phrase, he picked it up from somewhere and he’s desperately trying to remember where — what book or film or medium.

It’s too little, not enough to fill the void. There’s still room for every urge and guilty scraping desire to come scratching at his innards. It starts in his gut, churning gently there, testing the waters. And then, when it finds no resistance, it begins to spread. Sometimes it’s an ooze, slow and cloying. Today it’s a torrent – like the need is a sentient thing that’s realised his defences are down and he’s weak and now is the perfect time to thunder through him and turn that ever present want into screaming, churning howl of wantneeddesperation.

He shrinks into a ball, wrists locked with his hands curled around his ankles like if he can just hold this position it’s safe, he can’t move he won’t move he’s stuck here and it’s fine.

But he needs, he needs, and he knows that with just one short prick this will all go away. A cloud of ephemeral bliss that won’t just ease the aches and cramps and wantneedplease but that’ll let him feel whole again, let him be Castiel, fierce and ancient, a name imbued with respect and power – not the Cas of recent days, with the sympathy undercut with a patronising kind of pity and disgust.

He can make this go away so easily, all he has to do is give in. Just give in, Castiel. What’s the point in fighting? Just.....give.....in......

He uncurls himself slowly, eyes unfocused, glassy with determination. He can’t feel the tremors in his hands anymore, he has purpose now. Maybe that’s all he ever needed to feel better, a goal.

All he needs to do is get to his feet, if he can stand he can walk, and if he can walk he can find a way out of here, find something to feed to the Crocotta whimpering and drooling in anticipation inside him.

He stands, sways unevenly and then crumples to the ground. He hits the floor with a painful thump and he laughs, laughs until he can’t breathe, until finally unconsciousness folds him in its welcome embrace.

*

Cas wakes on the floor, aching. He remembers what happened, but it takes a few moments for the shame to come whispering through. A few blissful moments of null feeling. And then it hits. He gave in, he succumbed, and the only reason he isn’t high or possibly dead right now is because his body is sticks held together with skin and no muscle.

He pulls himself into seated position and sits with his head in his hands. The question isn’t would he have gone through with it, because undoubtedly he would. The question needs to be, what safeguards can he put in place to stop it happening again. He’s weak and pathetic, mentally and physically, and it’s only a matter of time before he succumbs again.

Realistically, even if he’d been able to walk, he probably wouldn’t have made it to a true relapse. Sam or Dean or Charlie would have caught him trying to sneak out, or heard one of the cars, or noticed he was missing before he’d worked out where in the middle of bumfuck nowhere he was supposed to get his hands on some heroin.

So it’s not like there are no safeguards at all. Still, these things all rely on chance. Fate could very easily align things just so, and if past experience is anything to go by, trusting to blind luck to be kind to any of them is just asking to be shafted. Luck is an imaginary construct, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped it fucking them over, time and again.

But this is all just a distraction that Cas’s brain is throwing up to try and keep the growing horror and shame at bay. He supposes really, he should be abstractly grateful for the horror. Horror means he doesn’t want to repeat it. That this was a temporary lapse caused by his fragmented mental state.

Nothing happened, this time. That’s what he has to cling to. And he senses that forcing himself to dwell on the shame and self-pity of it won’t help. He can see the pattern – the wallowing and misery and all around bad mental state that created the conditions for his attempted relapse. He’s just not sure having recognised it, he can do anything about it. Like a broken tap, you can turn it off, but you can’t stop the steady drip drip leak.

He’s not sure, entirely, that the simile works. You can fix a broken tap. He’s increasingly starting to doubt that he, himself, can be fixed.

*

Eventually he spots the piece of paper on the floor under the door. He shuffles over, not seeing the point in trying to stand if he’s just going to have to lean down to pick up the paper anyway. A short note, Dean’s writing.

_Left you some food outside. Didn’t want to knock and disturb you._

It’s short, gruff, and it makes Cas smile. Dean is looking out for him, in whatever way he can.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked him to leave. Perhaps the suffocating closeness wouldn’t have been as bad as the silence. Or perhaps it’d have been worse, and Dean would have seen him attempt to relapse, felt responsible for driving him towards it.

Perhaps there are no right answers, and he’s tired of thinking around in circles.

He attempts to stand, finds it easier than he expected. A little shaky, but upwardly mobile. He opens the door and carefully carries the pasta and weirdly bright orange drink to the bedside table. The smell of food makes his stomach rumble, but he can only manage a few mouthfuls before his unsettled gut protests. Exhaustion hits him suddenly as he picks up the drink, and it’s a struggle to open his eyes, but he forces himself to finish it before he succumbs.

The open door lets in a sliver of yellow light that falls across his face as he settles under the duvet. He doesn’t get up to shut it, he wants to leave it open, a small concession, an invitation to tell Dean that things are okay now, he can come back.

*

Cas wakes up several times in the night. The slow, hazy crawl to awareness that’s a side effect of the ongoing struggle between physical discomfort and absolute exhaustion. He recognises the vague feelings from a particularly nasty hangover he had, and isn’t that a metaphor for his life since becoming human – giddy, drunken joy followed by regret and crushing pain.

Twice he loses the battle for wakefulness before he can do anything about it, but the third time he manages to heave himself into an upright position. He’s aware that something has changed. It takes him a few long, slow blinks to get it. It’s completely dark, the door shut.

There’s a brief pulse of hurt at the implicit rejection, but then he tells himself not to be so stupid. As invitations go it was hardly a glaring one. Dean could just as easily have thought he was too tired to close the door behind him – or Sam might even have shut it.

He’s overthinking this, hugely.

With an irritated sigh he carefully tests his weight, pleased to find that most of the weakness from the previous day is gone. He picks up his ridiculous stick anyway, because he hasn’t had a day good enough so far to support himself on his own feet like the biped he supposedly is. He hates the thing, might as well be wearing a bell around his neck for the obnoxiously loud noise it makes on the concrete and tile floors. Maybe he should ask Dean if there’s anything he could do about it – some padding on the bottom perhaps. Anything to make him feel a little less like a portent of doom slowly clicking his way around the bunker. Maybe he’ll ask Charlie to help him with it, use his newfound stealth to sneak up on Sam and Dean and scare the ever-loving Christ out of them.

Yeah, because people making loud noises has really been fun for you in the past few days, he scoffs at himself.

*

Cas shuffles his way around the kitchen and library before he eventually finds Dean asleep on the sofa bed. And it’s a good job, because he’s worn himself out enough that this was going to be his last stop whether he found Dean or not.

Dean is resolutely unconscious, and even drooling a bit. Cas quickly revises his earlier plan of waking him up and dragging him to their bed – Dean looks about as tired as Cas feels. And besides, if he wakes Dean up they might have to talk about things, and Cas doesn’t want that right now. He just wants proximity and warmth and the sound of Dean breathing.

Also walking back to the bedroom sounds like an awful lot of effort when he could just crawl in beside Dean right here.

He slips into the space Dean has left and, tentatively, testing himself, he reaches over the slight distance between them and brushes his fingertips across Dean’s cheek. He feels a faint tingle, on the verge of discomfort but not quite there. He repeats the motion, firmer, with more pressure. A caress this time.

Dean’s eyes open hazily.

“Cas?” He mumbles, unsure, halfway between asleep and awake.

Cas smiles, hand still resting against Dean’s cheek.

“Go back to sleep, Dean. I’m here.”


	19. We Look Normal

Cas is woken by an obnoxious camera snap, which means in turn that Dean’s pleasant dozing is disturbed by a muffled grunt of irritation and a flailing fist to the gut as Cas lashes out in the wrong direction.

“Oof.” He sits up, blinking like a drugged owl and spots Charlie grinning triumphantly, phone in hand.

“Let me guess.” Dean grumbles. “Blackmail material?”

Charlie puts her hand over her heart. “Me, never? I just thought you’d appreciate this adorable image being preserved forever. Maybe you can put it in your wedding scrapbook.”

“Show me.” Dean holds out his hand, although he doesn’t expect her to hand over the phone.

“Only if I can be your best man.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can be best man in my imaginary wedding that I’m never gonna have.”

“Not gonna make an honest man of Cas?” She says in mock horror.

“I don’t legally exist and Dean has been officially dead at least twice.” Cas’s gruff mumble interrupts, rescuing Dean from his slightly cornered fluster.

“Yeah. That. Now hand over the picture, short stuff.”

She gives in and hands over the phone, half expecting Dean to try and delete it (as if she hasn’t already emailed it to herself in case of such an eventuality pfft). She’s surprised, then, when all he does is smile.

*

Dean smiles, but he can feel something tugging in his chest, threatening to come loose. It’s a nice picture, for all you can only really see the back of Cas’s head. Maybe because of it. His skeletal back and arms are covered by the blanket, sunken cheeks out of view. He looks – _they_ look normal. This could have been taken before all the bullshit. Any lazy morning in bed, Dean looking sleepily contented, hugging his pillow – the angle making it look like Cas’s head is resting on his chest, even though really he was only the barest inch away, so close Dean could feel the distance like static sparking along his skin, making his hair stand on end.

It catches him off guard, and the words are out before he can vet them.

“We look normal.”

The winces that crosses Cas’s face is only a micro-expression, too brief for him to even realise he’s really done it. Certainly too fleeting for Dean to notice, as he turns his attention back to the picture, full of some fuzzy, hopeful kind of relief that things are gonna go back to the way they were. That things are gonna be okay.

He looks back up at Cas and smiles, and Cas smiles back at him. The relief on Dean’s face is a bright and shining thing, and Cas doesn’t understand why it makes him feel like this. Dread, or something adjacent to it.

*

Cas feels off kilter all morning, haunted by some vague nagging feeling of trepidation which he keeps having to push away. He’s in stark contrast to Dean, who has been wandering about the bunker in an effervescent mood – the worry of the night before seemingly wiped away.

He’s making cookies right now. Whistling as he does, great big, ridiculous grin on his face as he swats Sam on the hand for trying to pilfer some of the dough. Cas had a few spoonfuls – mostly to rub it in Sam and Charlie’s faces – but the sugar made him queasy, added to the already churning mess in his stomach. He can feel the urge to retch, but he stamps it down mercilessly. Maybe to avoid worrying Dean and spoiling his good mood, maybe just to prove that there is something about his body that he can still control.

Dean looks at peace here, in the kitchen, with his family. Cas knows him better than that, though. He suspects the trouble has more been smothered than eradicated entirely. Still, Dean is in a much better place than he might have expected.

He was afraid that today would be a distant and awkward one. That Dean would wake up in turmoil, toying with the idea of removing himself from the equation entirely. It’s a little of why he wanted to be there when Dean woke up, to make it harder for him to go. He sleeps better when Dean’s there, too. Missed the sound of another person breathing in sleep next to him. It grounds him, although he hasn’t told Dean that yet, doesn’t want Dean to have to conjure the mirror image to that – of Cas alone and afraid and hurt with no one to help him.

Maybe that’s where the feeling comes from, this subtle, hollow precursor to dread nesting amongst his ribs. His rewritten psyche, beaten down and reformed in a way he doesn’t like. A way that whispers to him that this isn’t going to last. Funny, how he understands the voices in Dean’s head so much better now. A shared demon, wrapped thick around his throat and whispering in his ear that all the things he loves vanished so quickly, so easily last time. What’s to stop them from doing it again?

He tries so hard to trust this, his present. His fucked up and broken but still reforming life. He wants to trust the gift he’s been given, stop desperately looking for the catch, the trick.

Some days are better than others. This day seems like one of the others.

“Cas. Think fast!” Charlie shrieks, and he looks up to see a blob of sticky cookie dough with just enough time to dodge before it hits him in the face. He doesn’t though, and it splatters across his nose with the impact, hangs there for a long moment before dropping to the ground.

There’s a moment, heavy in the air. Like they’re all waiting to see if he’ll react – like they forgot he was broken for a moment and didn’t realise until it was too late. Like they’re scared.

And then, Dean bursts out laughing. And it’s so pure, so infectious. So goddamn Dean, that Cas can’t help but join in.

He leans down, forms the goopy mess of dough on the floor into a ball, and somehow finds the strength and coordination to pitch it into Charlie’s hair.

When he bows out of the food fight a few minutes later, too tired to participate but not to watch, he re-evaluates. Maybe today isn’t going to be so bad, after all. Maybe, like all things, it’s gonna be up and down and he shouldn’t measure an entire day by one morning’s bad feeling.

Maybe he just needs to stop overthinking everything and have some goddamn fun.

*

“Have either of you guys seen Sam?” Charlie’s first words when she returns, freshly showered and cleaned of all food related gunk. Cas shakes his head, Dean grunts something negative, too intent on not letting his sackperson die to respond properly.

Charlie smacks him on the side of the head.

“I wouldn’t have introduced you to the PS4 if I knew it was going to turn you into a dudebro.”

“A what now?”

She rolls her eyes. “I forgot you live in the real world, never mind. I’m serious about Sam, though. It’s evening and I haven’t seen sight of him all day.”

That gets Dean’s attention, he drops the controller and stands up, too fast.

“Woah, there.” Charlie holds up her hands. “He’s probably in his room, just it’s weird he’s not come out.”

Dean puts two and two together, but still feels the need to scuttle over to Sam’s door – with his two hangers on – and rap on it, check he isn’t making five.

“I’m _busy._ ” Sam’s terse reply comes out. Charlie sniggers, misinterpreting his need for privacy.

“Have you eaten at all today?” Dean mother hens.

“I’ve got snacks, fuck off. I can’t concentrate when I know you’re there.”

Dean snorts. “Fine, we’ll leave princess Sam to his research.”

“Research for what?” Cas asks.

“Hell if I know.” Dean lies, not entirely sure why he does so. “But he only gets like this when he’s gone full frontal nerd.”

*

Dean cooks a full fry for breakfast the next day, as a treat, and not because he was dismayed by the barely there sized portion that Cas managed for dinner. It couldn’t have been more than a few mouthfuls, nowhere near enough. Hopefully there’ll be something in the mess of hash and bacon and beans and pancakes that takes his fancy. Hell, Dean even plonks some fruit down on the table, in case he’s feeling healthy.

He makes up a plate for Sam, heaped with a little bit of everything and goes to set it down outside his door – only to find that last night’s food is still there, moved, but not a bite taken.

“Breakfast is here you ungrateful git.” He yells, hammering on the door.

“I’ve already had breakfast.”

That throws Dean, stuffs the ticking off back down his throat. “The fuck, when?”

“Before you were up, now for god’s sake, Dean. I need quiet.”

Dean returns huffily to the kitchen, swaps Cas’s yet to be filled plate out for Sam’s rejected one.

“I’m not really hungry.” Cas protests mildly.

“Dude you gotta eat something, or you’ll vanish.”

Cas looks to Charlie for help, but she’s determinedly looking elsewhere. He sighs, takes a forkful of beans and chews at it almost painfully slowly.

“Sam wasn’t hungry?” Charlie asks, to divert attention away.

“Not for my cooking, didn’t eat dinner either.”

“Maybe he snuck out of the window and escaped to freedom.” Charlie teases.

Dean opens his mouth to protest, but Cas beats him to it.

“The bunker doesn’t have windows. He probably tunnelled out.”

“And what exactly was he escaping from?” Dean asks, although he knows he’s just setting the two goddamn idiots up.

Charlie and Cas share a stage-subtle glance, complete with big winks.

“Absolutely nothing. Everything is great. No-one would ever want to leave this place.” Charlie says, in a robotic voice.

“You know what, tomorrow you can have fucking Bran-flakes, see if I care.” Dean scoffs, pulling out his phone to play solitaire and determinedly ignore the two fucking children sniggering together at the table.


	20. Missing, Presumed Nerd

“Hey, Dean?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah?” Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the game on the tv.

“Wanna watch a film?”

“I’m good with this.”

“Okay, lemme rephrase that. Quit hogging the goddamn TV and lets do something we can all do.”

“We can all do this.”

“No-one except you wants to play Little Big Planet.”

“Cas is playing.”

“Cas wants to watch a film, though. Don’t you, Cas?”

“I wouldn’t mind stopping, my fingers are starting to ache.”

“Hey, woah dude.” Dean pauses the game, turns to face him. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“We were having fun, and aching fingers aren’t the worst I’ve suffered.”

It’s not the right thing to say, if the look on Dean’s face is anything to go by.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself. You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“Well we’re stopping now, so it’s fine.”

Cas can see him toying with the disappointed accusation, the _yeah but how long would you have carried on – until your fingers cramped? Until your hands locked in place?_ He doesn’t appreciate it, he’s not stupid. He knows his limits. It was just a muscle aching from being exercised. Almost pleasant in comparison to his other aches.

But Dean bites the words back, swallows them down. It makes Cas smile, just a touch. Dean notices it, though. Whether he interprets it correctly or not, Cas can’t say.

“So what film do you wanna watch?” Dean asks, returning Cas’s little half smile.

“How about the Great Escape.” Charlie says, “Or will that hit too close to home what with our recent tragic break out?”

“Whuh?” Dean looks at her, utterly mystified, but Cas sniggers.

“Or how about Orange is the New Black?”

“Prison Break?”

“Oh, fuck off, the both of you.” Dean pouts.

“Yes sir, at once, sir.”

*

As another two days go by and no-one sees Sam in the flesh – although there are signs he’s been a-prowl in the night, missing books from the library, a steadily depleting pile of healthy snacks – it develops into a running joke. At breakfast Charlie hypothesises that Sam never left his room at all, that he’s still holed up there and waiting for the perfect moment to make a break for it.

“Just think about it, what better way to escape a prison than to make everyone think you’re not there in the first place. There’s no point locking the door to an empty room.”

“Then why does he tell us to go away when we yell at him?” Cas points out.

“Double bluff. He wants us to think it’s a recording.”

“It _is_ a recording.” Dean butts in, having decided that they’re not going to stop this joke at his expense, so he might as well join them.

“No, he only wants you to think that.” Charlie says, with a great sweeping hand gesture and narrowed eyes.

“Maybe he cloned himself with magic.” Cas suggests.

“Then why won’t he come outside?”

“Maybe the process went wrong, maybe his copy is tragically deformed.”

“If the clone went wrong, wouldn’t his vocal chords be different?”

“So?”

“So his voice wouldn’t sound the same.”

“So he’d have to use a tape.”

“It’d explain why his vocabulary seems to be limited to “shut up and go away.”

*

“SAM!” Charlie yells at his door. “If it’s really you, say the hippopotamus heffalump had a heaving hosiery.”

There’s no reply, just a disbelieving look from Cas at her at her choice of phrase.

Dean tries. “Sam, if it’s really you, tell me to fuck off.”

“Fuck off, all of you!”

He sounds so exasperated that they all burst into giggles, retreating and leaving him in peace.

*

“Any news about Sam?” Becomes a standard greeting in the bunker, and the answers get more ridiculous as the week draws to a close.

“According to his phone GPS he’s made it as far as Mexico.”

“Well last I heard he was trecking to California to get flung into space by Elon Musk.”

“The real news about Sam is the friends we made along the way.”

Charlie gets a weird look at that one, but she finds it fucking hilarious regardless. Cas watches her wander away, not quite able to suppress her sniggers. They’re all a bit hysterical, wondering what on earth Sam is researching that requires nearly a week of isolation.

It’s been somewhat of a charmed week. No incidents or near fights. Not that Cas is suggesting Sam was the cause of any, it’s just a coincidence that he went to ground this week. They’re all getting a little more used to the pattern of their lives now, things are settling somewhat.

He actually, and he’s not sure what to do about it, but he actually feels some fragile kind of hope that things might work out, might even continue getting better. It’s probably just a good week, he knows these things pitch forward and fall back, that it won’t be a smooth progression. But it does feels like a progression.

He’s sharing a bed with Dean, even if they don’t really touch, he can feel the old and easy intimacy gathering around, not all the way there yet, but making its tentative way nearer.

*

Sam’s door finally creaks open 10 days after he went to ground. Charlie hears the shower start up, gathers everyone in the kitchen to wait for the big reveal. She assumes there’s gonna be a big reveal. You don’t retreat to your room, alone, for almost a week and a half of private research and then just slink back into your daily routine like everything is normal and fine and whatevs.

When Sam shuffles into the kitchen, hair still wet from the shower but fully clothed, Dean pretends to mock faint in astonishment. Charlie goes one further, throwing herself down on her knees and pretending to sob with relief, while Cas watches on, trying and failing to hide the wry smile at their ridiculous behaviour.

All this fuss throws Sam somewhat. He blinks at them a few times with the air of a final year student who’s spent so long in the library living off vending machine snacks and energy drinks that they’ve forgotten what the sun looks like.

“Did you finally find a handsome prince to kiss away your curse?” Dean asks, in lieu of a hello.

Sam snorts “I think that’s more your department.”

“Then pray tell, Samuel. Your time of fasting, what did the gods reveal?”

“I was researching.” He draws the word out, like you do when you’re talking to a young child and you aren’t wholly sure they knows what it means.

“Oh yeah? Researching what, your right hand, the insides of your eyelids?”

“Cas,” Sam says, and that shuts Dean right up. It’s not that he’d forgotten, per se, the discussion they’d had before Sam had become Hermit #1, it’s more this seemed an excessive amount of time to dedicate to some exercise crap. “Cas, I’ve been looking for ways to help you.”

“Oh.” Cas says, and not even Dean can tell if it’s a good oh or a not so good oh.

“I’ve put together a whole regime. Hang on.” He darts back to his room, comes back with a thin folder. “Stuff to help build your strength back up. I talked to Jody and Donna, combed through some journals – did you know you can just email the authors of papers and they’ll send you them FOR FREE? Anyway, this is the most comprehensive thing I could pull together, and it might not be easy, and it’ll definitely take time, but—”

Dean tunes out, ignoring Sam’s words in favour of dealing with the churning, wriggling, nasty little hitch in his stomach.The queasy feeling of jealous uselessness. That should have been him, it was his idea. But not only did Sam sort it all out, he did so far better than Dean could ever have managed. What had Dean come up with? Fucking squeeze balls to help with grip and gentle walks and Pilates. Sam made a fucking dossier, poured days of research into it. And that’s a good thing. That’s gonna help Cas.

And Dean’s not just useless in comparison he’s also a terrible godawful person for feeling goddamn jealous that Sam was more helpful than he could be.

“Isn’t that right, Dean?”

“Huh?”

“It was your idea – you stayed up all night researching. Gave me some really solid places to start.”

“Oh, uh. Yeah.”

Cas is looking at Dean, and Dean doesn’t want to meet his gaze, see the knowing look there, the acknowledgement that he had the idea but couldn’t carry it through.

“That, I, thank you.” Cas says, but there’s something off about his tone. He catches himself, shakes his head and repeats it in a warmer, more grateful tone. “Thank you, both of you. This is so thoughtful.”

Sam holds out the folder and he takes it, starts to thumb through. There are pages and pages of exercises, ranging from simple stretches to obscenely complicated contortions. Every exercise has its own page, with neat, easy to follow instructions typed out by the side of simple diagrams. It’s clear an incredible amount of work has gone into it.

Cas notices a red dividing tab about three quarters of the way through, goes to flip it over and is stopped by Sam’s hand on the paper. He flinches slightly at the sudden movement, but luckily it doesn’t go further. An almost proportional response, huh.

“This is the best bit, Cas. I mean, fuck. We’ve got one foot in the supernatural world already, why not twist it, make it work to our advantage for once?”

Cas sits down at the table, waits until everyone else has joined him before spreading the folder out so Dean and Charlie can see. He doesn’t make allowances for Sam, sat opposite them and therefore looking at the contents upside down. He has an awful, sinking feeling that he knows what he’s going to find over the page, and what’s going to follow because of it. Any momentary advantage he has over Sam to school his thoughts, he’ll take.


	21. "Rabbits Are My Father’s Creation Too, Dean"

The first few spells, Cas dismisses out of hand.

“These are all temporary, and risky even for someone healthy. The names are an exaggeration, they don’t actually make you strong. They just make you forget your body’s limits for a while.”

Sam nods, as if he expected as much, and the cloying dread in Cas’s gut settles. He knows the books Sam would have found these first few spells in, knows they’re barely warm up material. Sam is nothing if not a diligent researcher – if he found these, he’ll have found the more serious spells.

Really it was only a matter of time before someone thought to broach this route, he just wishes it could have waited until he had the strength to properly deal with it.

“Kinda like overclocking a computer?” Charlie asks, and gets blank stares in reply. “Okay y’know. Never mind. What about that one?” She points at a spell to relieve pain.

Dean picks up this one, with a guilty sideways look at Cas. “Unless the spell heals the damage that’s causing the pain, it’s gonna be more harm than good. Weak as Cas is, pain is a good indicator if he’s overtaxing himself, ‘cause he’s not used to, uh, his new limits.”

He phrases it so delicately that Cas wants to hit him. His body might be disintegrating but his mind isn’t. He can handle Dean’s bluntness.

“Okay, so no pain spells.” Charlie nods, flicking over the page.

“What about this one?” Dean asks, “It draws from nature, not you so it’s all peachy.”

Cas just shakes his head, tries to turn over the page, but Dean has his palm flat over it.

“Woah woah, look. I get it won’t be consequence free, and man, I love a cuddly little rabbit as much as the next person – but if a few of them have to die to bring you back to fighting shape then line ‘em up, I’ll get the knife.”

Cas regards him, head cocked, eyes soft. “Rabbits are my father’s creation too, Dean.”

Dean looks at Cas like his brain is about to fall out of his ears, then realises he’s being fucked with.

“Okay Mr _Burgers-are-nearly-as-good-as-sex_. You had me fucking going for a minute there.”

Cas hopes the joke is enough to derail him, but of course he’s not the only person at the table.

“Why not, Cas?”

“The cost is too great.”

“You need to get better.” Sam points out, and he has this look in his eye that Cas doesn’t trust, that puts his hackles up. He’s sure Sam knows the cost of this spell, why they can’t do it. So why is he pushing it. What does he stand to gain from this argument?

“Not by blood magic, I don’t.”

“Why not?” Dean asks. “What’s wrong with this spell?” He’s looking between Cas and Sam, clearly knows something is happening between them but not sure what. He looks at Charlie for help, but she’s studiously examining the floor. Figures.

“That sort of magic leaves a taint, Dean. I have enough of those on my soul already.”

Dean’s expression crumples. “You’re not tainted, Cas. Tell me you know that?”

Cas doesn’t, instead he switches topic abruptly. “The energy this spell would require.” He trails off with a distracted little hum, but starts talking again before anyone can interrupt him. He knows Dean registered his avoidance, but hopefully he can steamroll his way past it for now. “This isn’t actually the original spell, it’s an adaptation. The original spells draws power from human souls. The person who made this revision, they thought they were making it less harmful. They were wrong, of course. There’s something uniquely powerful about a human soul – there’s a reason heaven and hell are always squabbling over them, and it’s got nothing to do with redemption or evil these days.

“The first time it was cast this way was in Iran, and it was used to bring someone back from the dead.”

“It didn’t mention that in the book.” Sam says slowly, possibly thinking of all the times it could have come in useful. Cas hastens to cut off that line of thought.

“For good reason. For one, the spell only worked because the soul was still on earth. Unfortunately The hellhounds tasked with escorting it to hell were, understandably, upset at having their prey wrested away from them and ended up taking their anger out on the newly restored soul _and_ the spell-caster too. Not that they would have lasted long anyway.” He pauses there, cryptically, for dramatic effect. And a little because just because talking takes a lot of effort these days and he needs a breather.

“The mess you’d create wouldn’t be quite as big as hers. Still, a 100 km **2** desert enveloping rural Kanas wouldn’t be likely to go unnoticed.”

Charlie raises an eyebrow. “And you couldn’t have lead with that?”

Cas shrugs. “If you’re going to make me explain myself, I’m going to do it thoroughly.”

Dean snorts. “Can’t turn down a chance to be a drama queen.”

“I’m surprised, Sam.” Cas continues, “that your research didn’t unearth any of this?”

“I just found the spell in the men of letters files, no background.” He lies, and Cas still doesn’t have a goddamn clue why.

Unfortunately, he gets his answer when he turns to the next page. He slams the folder shut and eyeballs Sam, reluctantly impressed by his deviousness.

“No.”

“It’s just an option.” He defends, but the look in his eye says otherwise. Hungry and righteous all at the same time.

“You knew exactly what my reaction would be.” This is why you put it right after the desert spell, because you knew I’d explain it, and you knew it’d seem trifling in comparison and you’d get Charlie and Dean onside. He swallows the accusation. He doesn’t know that, he ought to give Sam the benefit of the doubt. No matter if Sam’s doing what he suspects or not, he’s doing it from a good place.

“I suspected.” Sam admits, “But I hoped it wouldn’t be.”

“What?” Dean asks.

“A—” Sam begins.

“Don’t you dare tell him.” Cas snaps.

Which, of course, starts alarm bells ringing for Dean.

“Cas, buddy. What is it?” He tries for soft, gentle. It comes out harsh and panicked.

“It doesn’t matter, because it’s not an option.”

“What’s so bad it wouldn’t even be an option?”

Cas just growls in response, a low, dark noise. This is spiralling rapidly out of control and he can’t summon the right words to stop it, can’t summon _any_ words. They’re stoppered in his throat and he can’t find the effort to force them out. He’s suddenly exhausted, glad he’s sitting down or he might have ended up sinking to the floor.

Sam – fucking helpful bastard who can’t mind his own business – takes the opening.

“It’s a binding spell.”

“Doesn’t sound evil.” Dean says, but he’s looking at Sam appraisingly, ‘cause he knows this can’t be all there is to it.

Cas stretches the fingers in his left hand and contracts them, focuses on the movement and not the people around him. It helps him stumble past his vocal block just enough to murmur out, “that’s because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He can feel Dean’s gaze flick to him, catches his eye and tries to will him to just not fucking go there, because all it’s gonna do is start a fight he can’t afford to lose, but really doesn’t have the strength for.

Dean looks away, back to Sam, who takes it as cue to continue.

“It’s a simple spell. All we’d have to do is bind Cas to someone else and he’d share their strength to recover.”

Cas scoffs, and Dean reaches out a hand to touch him. It’s slow and deliberate, giving Cas all the goddamn time he needs to shy away or avoid it. Cas lets him, and it helps, god it helps.

“What Sam is neglecting to mention.” Somehow he finds the fortitude to spit out, “is that the other person would be as weak as me for the entire duration. I’d be sucking them dry to heal faster.”

“I’d be willing to make that sacrifice, Cas. You know that.” Dean says, quiet. Like he had thought Cas knew but isn’t so sure now.

“They physical toll would be heavy. It could age you prematurely. It could even kill you, if I were to be mortally injured while we were linked. All the energy in your body would be wrenched out in a futile attempt to pull me back from the brink that would not only fail, it’d end up dragging you down too.”

“You’re not going to die, Cas.” Sam says, and he means it, with all his soul. “We’ve got you safe, here.”

“And if someone attacks the bunker, and it’s just you and Charlie defending, because I’m half dead and taking Dean with me?”

“That little confidence in us, eh?” Charlie jokes, regrets it instantly and pulls back out of the conversation with an awkward cough, making her way towards the door. “I’ll, uh, leave this to you guys.” Dean watches her go, looking like he wishes to god he could follow before turning silently back to the conversation.

“No-one’s gonna attack the bunker,” Sam asserts, turning a pitying look on Cas when he snorts. “Look, this place is safe. I promise. I know it’s hard for you to trust the word safe, but it is.” Cas doesn’t say anything, so Sam keeps trying. “Is the risk of attack only thing holding you back? ‘Cause if so, that makes it _more_ important we do this. You’ll both be out of commission for a few weeks, sure, but after that we’d have you both back on form.”

“No.” Cas doesn’t elaborate, until Dean squeezes his hand gently and he forces himself to try one last thing with a bitter snarl. “We don’t know enough about the spell. We’d share my weakness, who’s to say we wouldn’t share my addiction and my panic attacks, too?” His own venom exhausts him, and the next sentence comes out as something more plaintive. “Isn’t it enough having one traumatised junkie in your life?”

It doesn’t sway Sam, though. He’s got his face of steel on, the I know better than you one.

“It doesn’t mention _anything_ like that in any of the accounts I’ve read.”

“I don’t want you to do this.” Cas states, plainly – waits for the further barrage of argument and bad-will that’s about to follow.

Sam starts to say something, but he’s interrupted by a look from Dean – that steady, serious, difficult one that always means someone’s going to get hurt. Sam registers it, shuts up and patiently waits for him to eviscerate Cas’s position. Cas can practically see him mentally congratulating himself for his clever manoeuvring, like all it takes for Cas to change his mind is Dean’s opinion.

“Then we don’t.” Dean says


	22. Without Malice

“What?” Sam turns to Dean with a start. Cas freezes, mouth hanging slack. He didn’t expect, it can’t be. What?

Dean won’t quite meet Sam’s gaze, stares somewhere behind his ear. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take, but Cas isn’t. It’s his choice.”

Sam’s incredulous, can’t quite get wrap his head around how stupid they’re both being. “This could fix him, spare so much suffering. And you want to give up?”

“Yeah, ‘cause Cas is the one who’s suffering, and he doesn’t want to do it. Spell’s gotta be bad news if he’d rather this.” He spares an awkward sideways glance at Cas, realising he’s talking about him like he’s not in the room.

“But,” Sam can’t quite scrape the words together, and it gives Cas a vicious little bolt of satisfaction. Now you know how I feel.

“But nothin’.” Dean interrupts, turning to Cas finally. “Do I think you’re making a mistake, kinda, yeah. Do I think we should do this, yeah. But it’s a two person spell, and I’m not forcing you to get better like that if you don’t think it’s an option.” Cas nods hazily, not quite with the conversation, still trying to process, scout the way ahead for traps or tricks. Dean turns back to address Sam directly.

“I’m not forcing someone to get better against their will, Sam. I’ve been down that road. You’ve gotta understand that.”

“Trying to convince someone of something isn’t the same as going behind their back.” Sam snaps, cut by the insinuation he thinks Dean is making. His anger riles Dean’s, and he bites back.

“You think I like this? You think I want to just dismiss this out of hand when it could fucking fix him?” Cas tries to interrupt, to say that it wouldn’t _fix him,_ it’d just speed up the recovery process – but Dean doesn’t even notice him, just carries on. “I’d fucking sign up like that, but I’m not putting Cas through that. Dude’s spent months chained up, drugged out of his mind unable to decide a single goddamn thing for himself. What right have we got to deny him this one?”

“I’m not saying we deny anyone a choice. I’m saying we try and persuade him!”

“Yeah, you mean bully him?”

Cas coughs, hacking and gross. It, at least, gets everyone’s attention.

 _“He_ can make choices for himself.” Cas says, with quiet bitterness.

“I’m not saying you can’t.” Sam says, exasperated – close to pulling out his hair. “I’m just saying respect us enough to let us try and change your mind.”

Cas opens his weary fucking mouth to try and defend his position, but he’s pre-empted by a look from Dean. It’s a look that says a lot of things, but there’s only one layer that Cas really cares about – _I don’t agree with you, but I’m gonna back you up on this._ Cas shuts his mouth with a quiet little exhale, sigh of relief, of exhaustion. Gratitude.

*

Truth is, Dean wants to agree with Sam – does fucking agree with Sam. But just as he’d thought about opening his big fat mouth, his eye had snagged on Cas, just for a moment. And his expression had fucking wrecked him. Bone weary and hurt, stubbornly psyching himself up for a battle he didn’t have the strength to fight. Dean had recognised it from, of all people, Sam goddamn Winchester. It was the look he got over his face in the last big fight with dad, before college, and his normal, happy life. The look of someone who’s so goddamn tired of having to fight for something they know is right.

And Dean had known, with sudden, agonising clarity, that he was going to take Cas’s side on this. No matter how he disagreed with it, couldn’t really understand it. No matter how much he wanted to join Sam and wheedle and argue and try and get Cas to change his mind.

He’s, fuck. He’s gotta do this. He’s gotta support Cas, be there for him when no-one else is listening.

Because otherwise, really, what’s the fucking point of him.

*

“Sam.” Dean says, fishing in his pocket out of force of habit for keys he knows live on a hook near the garage now. “We’re going for a drive, c’mon.”

Sam looks at him steadily, nods. Dean can see the gears spinning, knows Sam reckons he has more of a chance of turning Dean if he gets him alone. Yeah, well.

Sam plays nice, has the good grace to wait until Dean’s pulling out of the garage to start up his jabbering. He knows Dean finds it easier like this, to talk to the road, not the person in the passenger seat. There’s something about looking someone in the eyes when you’re fighting or confessing to them that makes him squirm.

“If you’d just back me up,” Sam leaves the sentence trailing, patiently expecting Dean to pick it up. Dean says nothing, clicks on the indicator and turns onto the winding road that leads away from the bunker, out into the starry night sky. And still Sam waits patiently for him to answer.

Eventually, two turnings and an easy slide from dirt road to tarmac, Dean dredges up his response. It’s not that he doesn’t want to hash this out with Sam – well, okay, he doesn’t but he knows he’s gotta – he just wants to make sure that the words all line up nicely. Make sure he gets across what he’s trying to say properly. Make sure he winds Sam down.

“I don’t think it’d change his mind.”

“He cares what you think.” Quick as a flash, like he’s been using this time to run through all the things Dean might say, prepare neat little counter arguments to them.

“He cares what you think, too.”

“Yeah, but it’s different. You could persuade him.”

Dean huffs a little laugh at that. “Sam, when the fuck have I ever managed to persuade that stubborn bastard off some self-sacrifice BS?”

“But—”

“His situation sucks, but it’s not gonna kill him. He’s gonna get better on his own, slow as that might be.”

“But if we could persuade him—”

“You’re not listening to me, Sam. If I thought I could talk him around I’d be with you. Goddamn strap me down, drain me dry whatever. But he won’t do it. All we’re gonna achieve by pushing him is to stress him out when he needs to recover.”

“So that’s it, you’re giving up?”

“I’m giving him the choice, Sam. Free will. It’s what we’ve all fought and fucking died for.”

“Free will doesn’t mean no-one has the right to try and change your opinion.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Dean punches the steering wheel, a sudden violent outburst that quells almost immediately. “He doesn’t trust us, Sam. He says he does, but I think it’s lip service – or he believes it on the surface but deep down he still feels like we betrayed him. We let him go, we let him get hurt and we took goddamn months to rescue him.”

“That’s not...” Sam starts, but trails off. Not relevant, not true? He’s not sure what he was going to say, not sure whether either would be right.

“We’re all working to build that back up, but part of that on our side is treating him like an adult, who can make his own choices. I mean, fuck, he’s a million years older than we are, even if he ain’t always wiser. He knows his way around spells, and something about this one has the absolute fear of fucking god put into him. If he says its bad news, I say we trust him, be where he needs us – on his side, not shooting him down or forcing him around.”

Sam doesn’t say anything for a while, looks out of the window at the silhouettes of trees, city lights in the distance.

“You’re set on this, aren’t you?” He says, eventually

“Yeah.”

“I figured I’d get you out here and be able to change your mind, make you see rationally.”

“I am seeing rationally.”

Sam sighs. “I know.”

“So does this mean you’ll drop it?” Dean asks.

Sam waits a beat too long before he answers. “Fine.”

“And again like you mean it?”

“Yeah, okay.” Sam reaches over and turns the radio up. It’s set on some mediocre classic rock station, of course. He flicks the dial around, and for once, Dean lets him. A truce of some kind.

They don’t turn back immediately, Dean nosing the car towards a set of winding lanes. In the static gap between stations Dean cracks his knuckles, throws out with an overly casual shrug.

“He might change his mind on his own.”

Sam doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

*

“So, that went well?” Charlie hedges. An opening if Cas wants to talk.

“I’m not tied to a chair, having that spell thrust upon me, so yes. I think it did.”

“Sam wouldn’t—”

“Not in this circumstance, no. But never make the mistake of trusting Sam when he’s backed into a corner and you’re blocking his escape.”

Okay, that’s sounding some pretty brutal alarm bells.

“Where’s this coming from, Cas? What’s Sam done to you?”

Cas sighs, realises maybe he’s gone a little over the line.

“Nothing, not like you’re thinking. Just, Sam tries so very hard to be a good person, to help. Sometimes he doesn’t listen to people with better judgement than his own. That’s when he breaks things.”

“This isn’t coming from nowhere, though.”

“No, it’s not. When we were looking for a way to cure Dean of the Mark of Cain – there was another path Sam started down. One that would have ended in a very dark place had we not found another option.”

“What other path?”

Cas sighs. All these conversations he hoped he’d never have to have again. There isn’t a rug in the universe big enough to sweep them all under, but this one he at least expected to stay put.

“We found out about the existence of a book – the Book of the Damned. Bad news from the first page to the last—”

“I’ve heard of it.” She laughs nervously. “I was the one who found out it existed, told Sam about it.”

“Huh.”

“I was arranging transport for it back to the states when I got the all clear for Dean.”

“That explains some things.”

“Yeah?”

Cas nods. “Sam told us about the discovery, probably decided to keep your name quiet once he’d gauged mine and Dean’s reactions. I knew enough about the book to know that it was a bad idea, and Dean agreed – forbade Sam from using the book, told him he thought it ought to be destroyed.”

“Well, it was. But I’m guessing not right after that conversation.”

“No. Sam ignored Dean’s wishes and forged ahead with his own path – because he thought he had the right answer. Not malicious, but still malign.”

“I see.”

“Dean doesn’t know.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

He doesn’t tell her not to tell Dean, respects her more than that. Some old wounds don’t deserve to be agitated. She understands.

“So, you said Sam breaks things when he’s trying to help, that mean you think this spell will break you?”

“No. I think it risks breaking Dean. My strength will come back by itself, I have no desire to risk his health just for expediency.”

“Fair enough. We’ll try and make Sam see it that way.”

Cas nods, a slight smile in lieu of a thank you. Neither of them says anything for a while, but there’s a soft-edged sort of tension in the air, a feeling of a conversation only half had.

Eventually Cas breaks. “I was expecting more of an argument from Dean, too.” He admits. “He has a... coloured past with this sort of thing.”

Charlie knows exactly what he’s talking about. “Maybe he’s learned from that. The fight with Sam after Gadreel, that really shook him up.”

“A Winchester learning from his mistakes.” Cas cracks a wry smile. “The world is full of unexpected surprises.”


	23. Too Many Teeth

One Winchester might have learned but the other, unfortunately, of course, has not. Sam has the bit between his teeth, the conviction that he’s doing something good, and an argument he couldn’t put to Cas while Dean was in the room.

‘Cause this isn’t just about Cas. And he thinks Cas knows that.

He plays like he’s given up to Dean, makes the right noises and implies, but not promises, that he’s letting this lie.

When Cas knocks on his door a few hours later he’s got it all marshalled, but he keeps to himself while they go through the ritual of changing his bandages. He understands this might get dicey, and he’s not cruel enough that he’d force Cas to listen by withholding help until he does.

He was surprised Cas still wanted him to do this with what happened the last time. It’s been nearly two weeks since then, but the bandages have been changed more recently than that so it looks like Cas was managing fine without him. Maybe coming now was a peace offering.

Sam finishes smoothing down the tape, steps back to check his handiwork. Even, no chance of leaking. Sorted.

He’s trying to think of the best way to broach it, before Cas leaves, but he can’t think of any way to ease into this. It’s gotta just be blunt and brutal.

“We’re not done with that argument, you know.”

Cas’s hand flexes and then closes.

“At least let me put my shirt back on, first.”

Sam acquiesces, sitting on the bed. He knows as much as Cas doesn’t want to rehash this, he won’t just up and leave. Not when he perceives Sam as having leverage over him. Not that Sam would rat him out – or even threaten to, but then, he’s not reassuring Cas to the contrary, so really that doesn’t fucking absolve him. Sometimes you gotta hurt someone to make them see sense. The good path is murky and difficult, that’s the way life goes. You gotta think of the greater good.

“Is this going to take long – do I need to sit down?” Cas sounds weary, bone tired. If Sam were someone else he’d wait, let Cas rest first before the ambush, but speed is of the essence here.

“It’ll take as long as it needs, Cas. You know that. Might as well sit down, though, if you’re already tired.”

Cas does, settling crosslegged on the bed and drawing his stick up over his knees, like an extra body language layer of fuck off.

“Go on then.”

“I’m not the bad guy here, Cas.”

“I don’t care about how morally compromised or otherwise this makes you feel. Get to the point.”

“I don’t think you’re considering all the angles here, Cas. You’re vulnerable like this, and that makes us vulnerable.”

“Not as vulnerable as you’d be with two of us like this.”

“Two of you like this for what, a week? Two? Verses you slogging it out on a long road to recovery? Where if we’re attacked Dean spends the entire time making sure you don’t get hurt and not defending himself.”

Cas hisses, and yeah, it’s a low blow. Sam kinda hates himself for it. But sometimes you gotta – yeah.

“You’re suggesting that I weigh a hypothetical and unlikely attack against the very real danger of this spell hurting Dean.”

“It won’t hurt him permanently.”

“You’ve looked up the incantation and the written text of the spell, Sam. That doesn’t make you an expert. I’ve seen it used, in various iterations. You humans think you’re so original but you’re not. How many people through time do you think have given half their strength for an injured soulmate? I can find you a fistful of examples of it ending well, and I could find you an ocean of it ending in doom.”

Sam draws in a breath, prepares himself for the big argument, the one he’s been holding back.

“It won’t just return your strength, though. You know that.”

Cas smiles, jagged and knowing enough that it throws Sam a little.

“I wondered when you’d get to this.”

“If you know what I’m going to argue then why are you still saying you won’t do it!” Sam snaps, regrets it when Cas flinches and then laughs bitterly. A gleam in his eye that Sam really doesn’t like. He feels the need to reach for a bottle of windex, ready for black blood and a mouth unhinging with far too many teeth.

“Go on, Sam. Enlighten me.”

“The spell, it won’t just jolt your stamina back up to normal. It’ll accelerate all of your healing, won’t it.”

“Yes.”

“Including the wounds on your back.”

“Yes.”

And this is what it hinges on for Sam. This is why he can’t understand Cas’s reluctance. He has a way to, not heal away, but certainly reduce the horrible, disfiguring scarring on his back. It’d heal far better than naturally – chances are you wouldn’t be able to see the lines unless Cas tanned.

This is why he keeps persevering, because it’s not just about getting Cas back to strength, it’s about helping Cas hide this from Dean. A choice Cas made.

It’s about protecting them both.

But Cas already knows this, and it throws Sam enough that he stumbles, the sure and confident assertion, words that he was sure would win Cas around, dissolving like candyfloss in a puddle. Instead all he can muster is.

“Doing this will protect Dean.”

Cas laughs, that awful leviathan echo scratching at the corners.

“Doing this will protect Dean’s feelings at the expense of his life. Magic is wild and unpredictable at the best of times, and I’m a whole new _species_. You’re so used to being immune to death, Sam Winchester, that you forget that it’s a huge and terrible thing.” He voice builds in volume and ferocity, and it hurts to breathe and it hurts to move his mouth but he needs to get this out, scream it so loud it’ll take root in Sam’s stubborn bastard helpful godawful brain. “Say I don’t pass on my addiction, or take 10 years off his life. Say I pass on my resilience to angelic healing. Say in a month, a year, 5 years, 10, Dean is dying and Hannah is there and she can’t save him because I got bored of being a _cripple_.” He spits out the last word, subsides and sways a little woozily.

“It won’t happen like that.” Sam says, still staunchly refusing to give in.

“But it _might._ ” Cas says, as he gets to his feet, stumbles to the door and practically falls through it, grasping onto the door-frame. “I don’t think you understand, Sam. You’re talking like you have _any_ say in the matter. You don’t. This is between me and Dean and frankly you can scream until you’re blue in the face. Your opinion doesn’t matter to me.” He pauses to gather himself, there are black spots dancing at the corner of his vision and he doesn’t think he’ll make it back to his and Dean’s room. He changes direction, aims for Sam’s bed instead.

“But—”

“STOP.” He screams, notices Sam’s face go pale as he turns and dashes out of the room.

He’s heaving in great breaths but he can’t seem to get enough air regardless, and it hurts, it hurts.

_Too far, he’s pushed himself too far._

The left side of his face is numb and his hands are curling into claws and he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t

breathe.


	24. Not The Angel of Social Graces

“CAS?!”

His eyes snap open and he tries to jerk upright, nearly headbutts Dean

“Hey, buddy. Hey, you’re alright. Thank fuck, you’re alright.”

Cas grabs hold of Dean’s arm, squeezes it, needs to reassure himself that Dean is real, that this is okay.

“What happened?” He asks, voice scratchy and rough.

“You were hyperventilating, I think. Flat out collapsed just as I was coming in the room. Luckily you were already on the bed.” Dean goes for a weak grin, not sure who he’s trying to reassure.

“My hands, I couldn’t, they—”

“Like claws, yeah. Happens when you’re breathing too quick. Dealt with my fair share of people having panic attacks. You see it sometimes.”

Cas tries to sit up again, but Dean won’t move his arm.

“Jus’, stay horizontal for a lil bit, buddy. Just ‘til everything’s circulating normally, yeah.”

Cas grunts, but doesn’t try to resist. This position is painful, aggravating the wounds on his back, but he can’t tell Dean that.

“Sam came and grabbed me, said he’d pissed you off real bad and you were looking shaky. He was worried.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, but Dean’s a clever boy. He can guess.

“He was tryna persuade you again, wasn’t he?”

Cas doesn’t see the point in lying about it. “Yes.”

“Fucking hell. Doesn’t know when to quit, I’m gonna fucking—”

“S’not his fault.”

“You had a goddamn panic attack because he couldn’t let it lie! That’s his goddamn fault.”

“I had a panic attack because I couldn’t breathe because I overexerted myself. Not Sam’s fault.”

Dean shakes his head. “Why’re you defending him?”

“I know how hyperventilation works, I know everything about the human body. I should have recognised it, calmed my breathing, thought rationally.”

“Jesus.”

“I take it you disagree.”

“Uh, y’think.”

“Can I sit up yet?”

“If you’re well enough to backchat me in full sentences, I figure you’re also capable of sitting upright. Have at it.”

He removes his arm and Cas pulls himself into a more comfortable position.

“So, um.” Dean begins, and he has that tone of voice which means they’re about to _Talk_. Capital T, italics, the whole lot.

“Not now, please.” Cas doesn’t care if he’s being rude.

“Yeah, okay.” Dean pauses, at a loss for what to do now that the emotional wind has been whipped out of his sails. “Um, are you tired, do you want help getting back to our room – or to the sofa-bed?”

“The sofa-bed.” He doesn’t think he can deal with the silence right now. His ears are ringing and his back hurts and everything itches and for the love of god he needs a distraction.

*

The mood in the bunker is strange for the few days after Cas’s collapse. It’s not tense between him and Sam, though. Tense would require them to be in the same room as each other once in a while. Instead, somehow, Cas becomes like a ghost, fading away as soon as he senses Sam coming near. The impression is reinforced by the felt Charlie helps him glue onto the bottom of his stick, and from being the loudest person in the bunker, now he’s the quietest.

Dean notices Cas’s disappearances on some unconscious level immediately, as a vague nagging feeling that something is awry. It’s not until Cas vanishes mid-sentence on him that he puts the picture together.

“So then Dr Sexy—” he trails off as he realises he’s lost his audience.

“You look like someone just told you there’s a pie shortage.” Sam notes, as he slopes into the room.

“I was just... Cas?” Dean mumbles, swinging around, as though maybe he’s hiding behind him or something. He doesn’t see Sam’s grimace.

“What were you saying to him that was so boring he ditched you?” 

“I – son of a bitch.” Dean clicks his teeth together. “Stay here.”

“Uh, okay.” Sam resists the urge to say he wasn’t going anywhere, carries on with his snack raid.

*

Cas hears Dean clattering after him, sighs. He debates just carrying on, but it’s not like he could escape Dean anyway. He couldn’t outpace Dean’s ridiculous gazelle legs before all of this – he certainly can’t now.

He turns and waits, can’t help but laugh when Dean executes a less than graceful skid and stop, windmilling his arms.

“Dude.” Dean says, not even out of breath. Which is unfair. “You can’t just avoid Sam.”

“Who says I’m avoiding Sam?” He’s gotta try, at least.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay Mr Vanishing Act. My stories just that dull, are they?”

“Your ones about Dr Sexy, yes.”

“That’s cold, buddy. And back on topic, you can’t just avoid Sam.”

“It’s worked well enough for the last few days.”

“Yeah, well. Ain’t gonna work forever.”

“Watch me try.”

Dean snorts. “Someone’s got an attitude today. Look, I get it, okay. You’re pissed—”

“I’m not ‘pissed’.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m tired.”

That prompts Dean to start fussing. “Do you need to sit down, or rest or—”

“Not that kind of tired. Existentially tired, tired of him looking at me like he’s disappointed.”

Cas can almost see Dean’s hackles going up. “Has he been bothering you again, I thought he’d have fucking learned—”

“I haven’t given him the chance to bother me.”

Dean sighs. It feels like every other breath he takes these days is an exasperated sigh.

“Look, I get you don’t wanna spend time with him, but, well. It’s a small bunker. He’s gonna notice, sooner or later.”

“And?”

“And that’ll be awkward, but obviously you’re not the angel of social graces so what would you care about that.” Dean changes tack. “How’re you ‘sposed to do your exercises and crap if you wont go near the dude who knows what he’s doing with them?”

Cas hits a stumbling block there, and he and Dean both know it.

“You could do it with me.” He tries, but Dean actually laughs at that.

“Yeah, right. We both know I barely know my ass from my fucking elbow. I ain’t risking fucking you up worse by telling you to stretch the wrong muscle or summit.”

Cas grits his teeth. This conversation is starting to grate on him. More, because he knows Dean has a point.

Fucking bastard, reasonable Dean.

“If I promise I’ll stop avoiding Sam can we stop this conversation?” He asks flippantly. He really wants a sit down, or a sleep. Or to cease to occupy this plane of existence. Whichever’s easiest for whoever is listening to his prayers.

“Scouts honour.”

“Fine. I’ll stop avoiding Sam, but only if he stops making holier than thou puppy dog eyes at me.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t been in the room with him to see them?”

“I haven’t. I can feel those things through walls.”

Dean laughs, goes to slap Cas on the back and course corrects. They all keep doing it, remembering, but not quite in time to avoid the awkward hand waving.

“Great. Now c’mon, all that Dr Sexy talk’s got me in the mood for a marathon!”

Cas groans, but he follows Dean anyway.

*

Despite his pantomime dislike of the show, Cas doesn’t actually protest properly. Part ennui, part because he’s a good person who doesn’t want to stifle the things that brings Dean joy.

Okay, so perhaps if Cas was a bit less tired he’d be winding Dean up by pointing out all of the inaccuracies, and did you know this show is actually rated the lowest amongst doctors and nurses for realism, but he never pushes Dean past the point where they both enjoy it, it’s a ritual.

Dean keeps glancing at him, coyly, like he wants to know whether Cas is finally letting himself get drawn into the overblown plot and ridiculous acting, or if he’s just winding himself up to really drag it.

It’s neither, unfortunately, it’s more that they’re three episodes down and he can barely keep his eyes.....open...........

Cas wakes up an uncertain amount of time later, which still manages to surprise him, even if sudden naps have been the norm for days now. He’s tucked into the sofa-bed, which he swears he wasn’t when he drifted off.

“I thought the point of getting that bed was so you could move to it when you were feeling tired.” Sam says lightly. “Not that Dean would have to carry you over there when he noticed you were passed out and not just ignoring him.”

Cas glances around, notices that they’re alone with a queasy, sinking feeling. For all he promised Dean he’d behave, he’s starting to regret that now. Even more so when Sam adopts the _discussion position._

“Dean told me you’ve been avoiding me.”

Cas grimaces, he hadn’t expected that he’d have to tell Dean not to share.

“But I’d already worked that out. He’s upset, doesn’t like that I’m putting pressure on you.”

Cas still doesn’t say anything. He’s just woken up, and this feels like an ambush.

“You know I’m just trying to help, you know it’s not from a malicious place. I’m just trying to look out for you and Dean both.”

“And I’m looking out for Dean.” Cas says.

“Yeah, yeah I get that. And I’m done trying to convince you otherwise, promise. You gave me one hell of a fright. Just, tell me you’ll think about it some more, okay? Keep your mind open at least to the possibility of changing it.”

“That seems fair.”

“So, truce?” Sam sticks out his hand. Cas doesn’t take it, just nods instead. The idea of touching anyone right now appals him.

“Truce.”

“Good, fuck. I’m glad. I really am sorry, I know I keep saying it, but I didn’t mean to upset or hurt you. You know that.”

Cas nods, he knows Sam was coming at this from a good place. Doesn’t excuse his actions, though.

“I think I’m gonna take off for a few days.” Sam’s voice drops a few decibels, like it’s a secret. “Just, clear my head, clear the air, y’know.”

“Have you told Dean?”

“Not yet. Wanna do it for me?”

Cas snorts.

“Yeah, figured not.”

“I don’t expect you to leave just to make me feel comfortable, Sam.”

“No, yeah I get that. And it’s not you, really. It’s. Look, I get that you aren’t going to change your mind, and that trying to make you do it is just gonna stress you out. But, I still think you’re making a dumb choice, and I keep wanting to have it out with you, tell you to stop being so goddamn stupid and just do the fucking spell with one of us. So I think a bit of distance right now would be good, just to give me a chance to come to terms with this choice you’re making, y’know.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

“I’ll pick some stuff up, while I’m gone. Stuff for your PT. We can start when you get back, gives you a while to rest up and enjoy being a man of leisure for a little while longer before you start wishing you didn’t have a mortal form.”

Cas swallows down his impulsive response, that he already wishes he didn’t have a mortal form.

“That sounds good, thanks.”

Sam huffs an awkward laugh. “Yeah, uh, no problem, Cas.”

“Good luck with Dean.”

“Oh god. I if I hadn’t just recently ripped him a new one for trying to split without saying goodbye I swear, I’d be gone at the end of this sentence.”

“You live and die by your own rules, Sam.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”


	25. Well, That Doesn't Sound Ominous At All...

“So, I talked to Cas.” Sam begins, awkward and sheepish.

“Did you apologise?”

“Yes, Dean! Jesus, I apologised.” All trace of sheepishness gone now, just exasperation.

“Good. ‘Cause I seem to remember you promising you were gonna drop this.”

“I never actually promised—” Sam can’t help defending, it’s a reflex.

“Bullshit. You let me believe you had, same fucking difference. This isn’t one of Crowley’s contracts.”

“I didn’t know pushing him was going to land him in the middle of an episode.”

“No, but still. You couldn’t let it drop.”

“I get it! I fucked up. You don’t need to guilt trip me, Dean.”

“Yeah well, I thought you’d got it before. Wasn’t I goddamn wrong.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s tone is derisive, hurt.

“Look, I don’t want to fight.” Sam tries.

“Me neither, but here we are.” A pause. “I’ve been thinking, and I reckon I know why you can’t let this drop.”

“Because I want him to get better.”

“Because you feel guilty for giving up on him, before, when he was missing.”

“Fuck you, Dean.” Harsh words, but there’s no heat to Sam’s tone. He’s not angry about the accusation, senses he probably should be but Jesus, he’s so fucking tired.

“You feel like shit for giving up on him, and you’re trying to make up for it. I get it, but you’re not helping.”

Sam sighs, runs his hand through his hair a little too hard, yanks out a few tangled strands by accident.

“I’m gonna split, I think. Just for a few days.”

“’Kay.”

“That’s all you’re going to say? Not gonna try and stop me?”

“You’re an adult, few days ain’t gonna kill you.”

“Thanks for respecting my decision.” He dangles it with a slight smile, hoping it’ll defuse things a little, but also prepared for Dean to fucking launch into him for it.

It cracks a smile out of Dean. “I know I ain’t had the best record that way, fuck, none of us have. I’m tryna fix that at my end, Sammy. So go on, have your adventure, just make sure you keep in touch – regular updates, and for the love of god check your salt lines.”

“Alright, Dad.”

“Fuck off. Go stretch your legs, you’ve been locked up in here for ages, no wonder you’re getting a bit antsy. Go get laid or something.”

Sam snorts. It’s amazing what years of arguing and making up while living in each other’s pockets can do for a relationship. One joke and it’s almost like you were never fighting. Emotional fucking whiplash. Whether that’s a healthy thing, or they’re just shoving the issues down on deep so they can spring up in the future, he doesn’t know.

He thinks about throwing out one last apology over his shoulder before he goes, decides against it. He doesn’t want to draw this out. For all Dean’s pretending he’s okay with this, Sam can see the tense lines in his shoulders. Yeah they got the fucker that kidnapped Cas, but sense memory and their generally shitty luck is telling Dean that this is a bad idea.

“I’m taking the Impala.” He says instead.

“Good luck with that.” Dean says. “It’s stashed in fucking Colorado. Maybe you can pick it up on your trails.”He picks up on Sam’s incredulous look, blazes right ahead so he doesn’t have a chance to question it. “The Jeep is warded, take that. And you’re keeping the GPS on your phone on at all times or so help me god I’m going to get Charlie to put a tracer chip in your goddamn spine.”

*

As Sam drives, he thinks. Dangerous thing for a Winchester to be doing, as Dean has told him many times. He can’t help it, though. He and Dean both have a tendency to overthink things, but Dean’s is more directed inward, with his tendency to act first and then castigate himself for it for weeks. Sam’s is more directed outward – pushing him forward into thinking that he has all the solutions.

Sam wishes he could say that Cas’s attack was a wakeup call, that he was on the other side of the argument now, easy enough. It’s not, though.

He feels genuinely terrible for putting Cas in that position, but there’s a nagging voice there saying it would’ve all been worth it if he could’ve gotten him to agree to doing the spell.

It didn’t work, though, and he’s not going to try it again. Cas’s mental health isn’t robust enough, nowhere near as robust as he’d been starting to think. It’s easy to forget, with all the snark and wit, the mess that Cas had been when he woke up, the way he’d flipped out.

Sure, he’s had attacks since Dean got back, but they were all triggered by physical things, unexpected touches or sudden movements. Not arguments.

There’s a little swell of self disgust at the attempted justification, and he lets it rest there for a moment before dismissing it. He’s not trying to absolve himself, he hurt Cas and he knows it, but there’s a difference between doing it wilfully and what he did.

Fuck.

There are no other cars for miles as he pulls up to the intersection so he slows, lets the engine idle for a moment before swearing again under his breath.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, swings the car north, towards South Dakota.

*

He’s practically at Jody’s doorstep when his brain howls out a red alert.

Claire.

They didn’t tell—

Fuck, they are bad people.

*

Jody ignores the vibrating phone the first few times. The third time, she pulls over her truck and answers with a terse; “this better be worth it.”

“Jody.”

“Sam?”

“Listen, I, uh. Is Claire with you?”

“I was just about to drop her off at school. She’s going on a week long trip. And I’ve checked, it’s a real one this time.”

She shoots a glare at the recalcitrant little witch sat next to her, but the kid’s got her headphones in, staring at some nonsense on her phone. Doesn’t even seem to have noticed they’ve stopped.

“Uh. Okay, good. Are you free after?”

“I can be, why?”

“We, uh. We need to talk.”

“Well that doesn’t sound goddamn ominous at all, fantastic.” She sighs. “Swing by the house. I’ll be there.”

*

Jody listens in silence as Sam runs her through the highlight reel of the last four months, give or take. It throws him a little when he works it out in his head. Cas went missing in the dying days of December, the weird hollow period between Christmas and new year – and now it’s April. A whole third of the year gone.

There’s more silence when he finishes, and then she punches him in the chest. She grimaces, shaking her hand and mutters to herself, “shoulda seen that coming, goddamn abs of steel.”

She seems to weigh up whether to make another attempt, decides against it.

“I can tell by the sheepish look on your face that you know you’ve done something wrong. Now, do you wanna list it out for me, or are we gonna do this the hard way?”

She’s treating him like a naughty child, she knows, but it’s hard to turn off. Besides, if anyone needs a goddamn parental influence in their lives it’s him and his idiot brother.

“We should’ve told you when Cas went missing.”

“Your damn right you should have! Jesus, Sam. There’s a whole heap of reasons, I could’ve helped you for one – but did you even think about Claire? If someone was going after Cas, wouldn’t she be a target?”

That hadn’t even occurred to him – or Dean – but Sam was supposed to be the thinking, rational one. The one not half out of his mind.

“I didn’t even—”

“No.” Jody says. “You didn’t, because you get wrapped up in these dramas and you forget that the world doesn’t start and end with whoever’s currently sitting in your goddamn car! You have friends, family who’re affected by the choices you make.” She flops down onto the sofa, staring past Sam’s shoulder. “Jesus, what am I going to tell Claire? I hate hiding stuff from her, but there’s no way... she’d want to go see him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Y’think, genius?” She stands up again, restless. “Fuck this, I need a drink.”

Sam follows her to the kitchen where she pours them both a very generous measure of whisky.

“So when you called me about rehabilitation, that was about Cas?”

“Uh, yeah.

“Jesus, Sam. You made it sound so fucking abstract, I thought you were pulling together hunting resources, for people taken by vampires, or trapped in fucking monster larders or something. I thought, a little bit weird of you to ask, but it’s not like someone Sam knew could’ve been injured that badly, because I’d have fucking known about it.”

“Would it help if I said I was sorry again?”

“No, it wouldn’t. But never mind that, I can finish biting your head off for all of this goddamn mess later. You didn’t come all the way here to spill the news about Cas in person, your panicked, last minute phone call made that pretty clear. So honest to god, what’s happening now that’s so bad you needed me face to face.”

“I need to talk something over with someone impartial, a decision I’m having some trouble with.” Understatement of the century.

“Hold on one sec.” Jody quaffs down the rest of her drink, one hand held up, and then refills it. “Hit me.”

He does. There’s a momentary pause and then she reaches over and cuffs him around the ear. She’s learning – no way is she going to hit him again somewhere that hurts her more than it does him.

“Ow!”

“You want to use a dangerous, unpredictable spell to accelerate the healing of someone who’s gonna get better on their own?”

“It’s not that simple, Jody. Cas is in danger as it is, and so is Dean. Tell me if something comes after a Cas who can barely walk, never mind defend himself, that Dean won’t throw himself between that and get them both killed”

“Maybe, but who’s to say something will come for him?”

“Every goddamn experience since we met him to date.”

She purses her lips, he’s got her there. Still doesn’t mean she agrees.

“Is it worth the risk?”

“Yes!” Something in Sam snaps, and the things he couldn’t make himself say to Cas or Dean, the things he was struggling to admit even to himself suddenly come pouring out.

“You haven’t seen him, Jody. He’s so fucking weak, he’s barely even there and it’s terrifying looking at him and knowing that if something were to happen, we probably wouldn’t be able to protect him. I carried him from the car to the bunker and I swear to god, it was like lifting a – a – a fucking dog. There was nothing there of him.”

Sam’s elbows are on the table, hands fisted in his hair. He can’t make eye-contact with Jody, staring at his glass with red rimmed eyes, instead.

Everyone seems to forget that it was Sam who looked after Cas when he was at his worst. When he couldn’t even eat without throwing up, when he was barely even a person, just a desperate, terrified skeleton screaming for drugs or death or just goddamn something to make this all go away.

“I know I’m not as close to him as Dean is, but Jesus, he’s about the nearest thing I’ve got to a best friend and I gave up on him when he was missing and I don’t think I can lose him again. I don’t think I can watch Dean lose him again.”

“Jesus, Sam.” Jody reaches out to comfort him, right hand gripping his wrist gently. “I think I get where you’re coming from now.”

“So you agree with me?” He looks up at her, almost pleading.

She sighs, doesn’t answer straight away. “You haven’t told either of them this, have you?”

“I can’t. Dean can’t know what he was like, you think it’s fucking me up, Jesus. And Cas is fragile, I’ve already fucked him over, I can’t—”

“Yeah, okay. I get it. But, for the record, Sam. I’m still on Cas’s side.”

He looks up at her now. “You wouldn’t, if you’d seen...”

“Maybe, maybe not. But look, kid. You’ve gotta think of it from Cas’s point of view. If he just keeps on keeping on – living in the safest place in goddamn America pretty much – he’s gonna get better by himself. Why risk even the slightest chance of the spell going wrong, just to push fast forward on it.”

“But if we were attacked—”

“You think Cas hasn’t thought of that? You think _Dean_ hasn’t thought of that? Look at it this way, you’ve got two of the most self-sacrificing _look-out-for-the-other-at-the-cost-of-my-own-health_ idiots in the midwest, both agreeing on the best course of action. Probably means it’s pretty much the most harm neutral option of the lot.”

Her flippant tone is exactly what Sam needs and a short bark of laughter escapes him. He sits back, scrubs his hand over dry eyes.

“Jesus, when you put it like that...”

She shrugs. “Look, joking aside, if Cas’s recovery is every bit as difficult for them both as you’re painting it, and they _still_ won’t take this way out – isn’t that the answer you need?”

“I, maybe...”

“Convincing there, Sam.”

“But what if he gets attacked?”

“By what? Quit flogging that dead horse. You live in a **_bunker_**.”Sam can practically hear the goddamn underlined bold point italics. “That place is what, the most impenetrable supernatural fortress you got going – and I don’t for one moment believe that if something does happen to attack, you and Charlie are gonna scamper off and leave the two of them to it. Anything that gets past those ridiculous wards is gonna kill you all, Cas isn’t going to be the problem.”

“You have such a neat way of putting things in perspective.”

“Yeah well, that’s what years on the force and the sudden acquisition of two teenagers will do for you.”

Sam nods absently, and Jody lets the silence stretch. This conversation feels pretty wrapped up, but you can never tell with the Winchester boys. Could be this was the easy bit, the warm up to something even worse.

She’s lucky it’s not Dean, there’s something about him when he’s vulnerable that she can barely stand. It hurts, like a goddamn knife wound. Sam she can deal with a little easier, he’s dissimilar enough to herself that she can give him what he needs – wind him around to other points of view. Dean, she understands far too goddamn viscerally.

“I was just trying to help.” Sam says, eventually, and she suppresses a sigh of relief.

“Course you were. But sometimes you gotta just let people get on with it. Fighting Dean and Cas now is just gonna cause division and deprive them of your support. You’re Dean’s brother, and Cas’s friend. Fighting with you isn’t going to help either of them, it’s just gonna make this recovery longer.”

“I. Yeah, you’re right. Why are you always right?”

Jody laughs, throws back the rest of her whisky.

“I’d tell you to stick around and repeat that to Claire when she gets back, but then I’d have to explain to her why you were here in the first place.”

Sam doesn’t take it as a joke, sees it as an instruction.

“Oh, shit. Do I need to go?”

“Nah. She’s not back for a few days, don’t you goddamn listen when I talk to you? You’ve got until Monday, and I’ve got a bottle of whisky and an ass whupping for you to have between then.”


	26. Don’t Quote Darth Vader At Me

“So, Sam’s gone.” Dean says, dropping down on the sofa with a little more force than necessary.

Cas winces as the movement jostles his injuries. “He’ll be back.”

“Yeah, it’s always weird sending him off, though.”

“I thought you were mad at him?”

“I am, but I dunno. Kinda makes it worse. Spend all your time with a dude, kinda feels like you’re missing a limb when he ups and offs.”

Cas nods, he gets it – on a grander scale. The agony of being severed from the host balanced against the anger and disappointment he’d felt towards a portion of his brethren. He doesn’t say that, though, thinks it would sound a bit too much like oneupmanship.

“I just can’t believe he’d do that.” Dean says.

“It was just a panic attack, I’ve had them before. I’ll have the again.”

Dean scowls. “Yeah, but the others were by accident – ‘cause we forgot or let our tempers get the better of us. This was, he pushed you, and it fucked you up dude.”

“It was still an accident.”

Dean makes a vague noise, disagreement or dissatisfaction, something negative anyway.

“I get that he was trying to help, if I thought he’d done it maliciously I’d kick his fucking ass from here to Europe. But the way he went about it, lying to me, pressuring you and going against what you wanted. We both know that was wrong.”

Cas doesn’t disagree with that, it was wrong. But like so much of the wrong they all do, it was wrong for the right reasons. He can’t decide where he stands on the sliding scale of that making it better or worse. There’s a lot said about the road to hell and good intentions, but Cas doesn’t want to add to it tonight. He diverges, instead.

“Did he say where he was going?”

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t think he knew himself. He’s gonna keep me updated, though, just in case...” He trails off where usually he’d make some dumb joke. It feels off colour to be flippant about Sam vanishing. Too soon. Maybe it’ll always be too soon.

The silence stretches on for a moment, not quite comfortable. Not that Cas finds many silences comfortable these days. It unnerves him, reminds him a little too much of hours alone in an abandoned warehouse, amongst other places.

“So, uh. What do you wanna do today?” Dean asks eventually.

Cas considers for a moment, and when the answer comes to him he can’t think why it took so long. “I think, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to go outside.”

“Yeah, ‘course. Where?”

He gives Dean a wry look.

“You’re going to make fun of me.”

“Scouts honour I won’t.” Dean says, but he’s got that godawful little shit look in his eye, and Cas knows he’s already said too much if he wanted to avoid being mocked.

“I’d just like to stand outside for a little while, feel the wind on my face. I can’t remember the last time I just stood in the sun.”

Dean’s heart melts a little.

“Shit, yeah. Of course. When was the last time you were even out of the bunker?”

“When we went clothes shopping.” And that woman took one look at me and thought you were slapping me around, he leaves unsaid. He can tell by Dean’s pinched expression that it wasn’t unheard, regardless.

“Jesus, fuck.” Dean says. “That’s way too long to be stuck inside. We shoulda taken you out on a grocery run or two, or, I dunno, something.”

Cas smiles bitterly. “I would have turned you down, even thinking about it unnerves me.”

“Fuck, man.”

“It’s fine, just. I’m not sure I could cope with the amount of people, the amount of noise and movement and light in a supermarket.”

“I didn’t even think.” It seems to be Dean’s catchphrase these days.

“I just want to see outside.” Cas diverts him. “Do all the cliche things like feel the grass beneath my feet and the wind on my face. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen a tree up close, seen anything living that wasn’t human.”

“You’ve been feeling pretty cooped up in here haven’t you.” Dean observes quietly, a little upset at himself for not noticing.

Cas shakes his head. “I’ve felt safe. Or as safe as it’s possible to get. But, well. It’s starting to grate a little. Cabin fever, I think you’d call it.”

Dean nods. “Been there, doesn’t matter how many werewolves are howling at your door, sometimes you just think you’ll die if you can’t see the sky one more time.”

“Exactly.”

“Luckily for you, buddy, there’s no reason not to feel safe outside. This place is chock full of wards, and they extend a little way into the forest. Enough for you to get your grass and your air and crap.”

A little tension leaves Cas’s shoulders. As much as he wants to go outside, the idea made him nervous. More nervous than when they’d gone to the shops. There had been four of them there, and a vehicle – and he’d been so buoyed up by the fact that Dean was staying. This time there’s room for his cowed little brain to throw up all the bad things that could happen.

He stamps them down with all the force he can muster, pushes himself to his feet.

“Keen.” Dean notes, standing up too. “We’re gonna have to wrap you up a bit first, though. I know it’s like April, but it’s still 55F out and you ain’t got much in the way of insulation.”

Cas doesn’t argue, stands by placidly for the next part as Dean leads him to their room and digs out layer after layer of clothes for Cas to pile on.

“This is ridiculous.” Cas eventually grumbles. “I can barely move my arms.”

“If you catch a cold in this state it’s gonna knock you out. You’re lucky I’m not going out in front of you with the clorox.”

“Please don’t. The bacterial genocide you insist on in the kitchen is bad enough – don’t follow them out into the world too.”

“Nothing wrong with keeping things clean, dude.”

“Actually I believe studies have shown a little bacteria is good for—”

“Put a sock in it, dude.” Dean playfully holds a balled up pair of socks to Cas’s mouth, not quite touching his lips.

“I would defend myself,” Cas deadpans, “but as I mentioned before, I can’t move my arms.”

“Yeah alright, Mr Critical. You don’t need your arms to appreciate nature, anyway.”

*

“Jesus, fuck it’s bleak out here.” Dean says, as they step out of the bunker’s front door. He’s talking about the concrete nightmare itself, and Cas turns and gives it an appraising look.

“I don’t know, it has a certain rugged beauty.”

“Why thanks, Cas.” Dean winks, waggles his eyebrows.

“This is why you put me in a hundred layers, isn’t it. So you can be an idiot and I can’t do anything about it.”

“Of course not, now c’mon. Nature calls.”

*

Dean stands with his hands in his pockets, wishing maybe he’d put more thought into dressing himself. He’s already cold, but he doesn’t want to back inside and miss a moment of the expression on Cas’s face.

It’s not big or flashy – he’s not gasping with delight or even fucking doing anything. He’s just standing in the spring sunshine with his eyes closed, looking oh so content.

Dean wants to kiss him, so badly – closer to goddamn need – but he can’t break this up, bring Cas out of whatever moment of peace he’s having.

Eventually Cas opens his eyes, turns back to Dean with a smile that quickly melts into a scowl.

“All that fuss about me wrapping up warm, and you’ve been outside five minutes and you’re practically blue.”

“I’m fine.” Dean tries, but Cas is having none of it. He shrugs out of his top layer, hands it over. Dean protests feebly, but Cas has his _don’t you fucking argue with me you bastard or I will tear you limb from limb_ face on. And the fact that he no longer possesses the strength to do that makes it all the more terrifying somehow. You know he’d still manage it – you don’t want to think about how.

The jacket definitely helps, and Dean reckons once his hands have thawed out enough that he can unzip the pockets and stuff them in, it’ll be even better.

Cas notices him struggling, mutters something _very_ unangelic and tugs off his gloves, leaning his stick against his leg and folding Dean’s hands in his own.

It’s a move on autopilot, and one he wouldn’t have made if he’d been thinking. He stiffens, and then relaxes.

“Um, this okay?” Dean asks, wary. He doesn’t want to do anything sudden like pull his hand away, but he noticed Cas’s momentary discomfort.

“Your hands are cold.”

“Yeah, uh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” He can’t quite think how to express to Dean how unexpected, how wonderful this is. It’s not prickling or burning, it’s not causing tense pins and needles to ricochet along his bones. “It doesn’t hurt.”

He says it with such wonder that Dean cracks a smile, feels okay to make a joke out of it.

“Gee, I’m glad my touch doesn’t burn you, Cas.”

Cas debates hitting him, but decides that no, that _will_ hurt.

“If you’re going to be an ass about this I will let you freeze.”

Dean back-pedals furiously. “No, I just, don’t let go. It’s nice, I uh—” He flushes bright red “I’ve missed this.”

“Me too.” Cas admits. A little embarrassed, but a lot less so than Dean. It’s something so small but it feels momentous. It’s been so long since he’s had this kind of sustained affectionate contact that he’s not sure he ever wants to let go.

Dean seems to be of a similar mind, making no move to disentangle them, even when his hands thaw out, and so it ends up with Cas having to make the first move. He lets go of Dean’s hands, to a displeased whine from Dean.

“Two seconds.” He reassures him, turning to face the sun again and reaching for Dean’s right hand with his left. Dean takes it with a soppy little grin, but stays facing Cas.

“I prefer this view.” He says.

“Have you always been this disgustingly sappy?”

“Yeah.”

Cas laughs.

“So, tree hugger. We’ve established you like communing with nature, but have you got an opinion on gardening?” Dean asks, so casually that if Cas was paying attention he’d know there was an angle there.

“I like the idea of it, but I have no practical skills, or knowledge of whether I’d have an aptitude or not – what’s the term?”

“Green fingers.” Dean supplies.

“That’s it. It seems noble, pouring hard work into the ground and hoping it yields something tangible in return. An incremental day by day progress towards something beautiful or something functional.”

“Oh yeah. So you’d grow herbs _and_ flowers?”

“Perhaps. I’d need to research it more.

“I could build one, here for you. Clear out the space, dig it out. It’d be a good excuse for you to get outside, spend some time in the sun, the fresh air.”

“Where would you find the room to plant a garden with all this forest?” Cas asks, not unkindly – it’s just, he knows sometimes Dean plans too big, escalates a simple idea into a promise he can’t deliver and then blames himself for it. It’s least cruel to crush his more impractical dreams before they’ve really taken hold.

“I can cut down a few trees, easy.” He smiles that brash, cocky smile, but there’s something behind it, and Cas realises this isn’t a spur of the moment idea. This is something he’s thought about, something he’s planned and set his sights on. It would be neither kind nor practical to shoot him down now. He’ll just have to try and guide him down a plausible path.

“You’ve some previous experience as a lumberjack I was unaware of?” He teases.

“Shuddup. I can learn. Charlie says you can teach yourself anything on the internet, and it’s not like I’m lacking in trees to practice on.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’ll give me an excuse to get outside, stretch my legs. And you can watch and be hugely impressed, of course.”

“I’ll be watching with binoculars if I’m watching at all.”

“You wound me.”

“No, you might wound me. That’s the danger.”

“I’m not gonna let a tree fall on you, dude. Give me some goddamn credit.”

“Hmm.”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

“Don’t quote Darth Vader at me.”

“I’m still reeling that you know that was Darth Vader.”

Cas debates throwing a reference back at him, but he’s seen the sort of ridiculously long, increasingly obscure nerd battles passing back between Dean and Charlie, and he has no desire to be embroiled in one.

“Hmm. So, once you cut down the trees, how are you planning on getting the stumps out?”

“I. Uh. Dig them out?”

“These trees are pretty big – that’s a lot of roots. Maybe you’ll be finished by next year.”

Cas regrets the slightly mean comment when Dean groans, scrubbing one hand over his face.

“Jesus. Why is everything hard?”

“We’ve thwarted apocalypses, I’m sure we can defeat a few trees.” Papering over his own thoughtless comment, but hey, Dean’s smiling so it seemed to work.

“There you guys are. Jesus. Warn a girl – I thought you’d up and left!”

Dean and Cas turn around guiltily to see Charlie hurrying up the path.

“Sorry kid.” Dean says, letting go of Cas’s hand to embrace her for a moment.

“Damn right. I mean, sorry for ruining what is clearly a romantic afternoon of holding hands and looking at trees, but, c’mon!”

“It’s fine, you’re not interrupting anything.” Cas reassures. “Dean was just trying to impress me by promising to raze this forest to the ground so that I could plant a garden. He’s going to dig out the roots by hand, and all.”

Charlie laughs. “Wow, so manly. Although to be fair to him, by hand might be the only way to do it. Doubt you could get a digger up here.”

Dean pulls a mock-cornered look. “Yeah. A digger. I’d thought of that. Sure.”

They laugh, but then Charlie gets her considering face on.

“Y’know, the amount of spells and crap the men of letters were into, I’m surprised they didn’t have a greenhouse, or an herb garden or something.”

“I think they were more into theory than practice.” Dean demurs.

“Yeah, that or gardening wasn’t ‘men’s work’.” Charlie snorts. “But, I mean, maybe you’ve explored more than I have, but I don’t even know how much of the land around here belongs to them. I’d wager a good chunk of the forest, prevent it getting cut down and ruining the secrecy – from what I’ve seen they were pretty long term thinkers.”

“Long term enough that the power was still working when we arrived – we just had to flip a switch.”

“Yeah. I wonder if there’s a floor-plan or a map or something. There could be any number of other sections to this place that we’ve not thought to look for before.”

“If it turns out there’s a secret passageway in the library I will—”

“Die of excitement, yes, Dean. We’ve met you.” Charlie teases.

“Wouldn’t be the stupidest way he’s died, either.” Cas snarks.

“Someone’s cranky all of a sudden.” Dean teases gently, but there’s a question there too.

“Sorry. Standing still is suddenly very unpleasant.”

“You tired?” Dean asks, worried Cas is overtaxing himself.

Cas shakes his head. “Standing still for too long makes me twitchy. As does sitting, or lying down. Or basically anything other than walking.”

“Which you wish you could keep doing forever, ‘cause when you stop it’s even worse, right?” Charlie asks.

“Right.”

“I used to get that restless stuff really bad when I stayed up coding for days straight. Not fun. I used to kill it with coffee and red bull, but well. If you have a heart attack ‘cause I overloaded you on caffeine, Dean’s got a hell of a lot of forest for my unmarked grave.”

“Please, no matter how annoyed I was with you, I’d still give you a hunter’s funeral.”

“How noble.”

“Nothing noble about it, kid. I just don’t want you coming back to haunt my ass.”

Charlie laughs. “C’mon, lets go for a walk. And hey, if it all gets too taxing for you, Cas – we can get Dean to bridal carry you back.”


	27. I Like Your Species in the Abstract...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late, I don't even have a good excuse, the chapter was literally sat there ready and waiting for me to press publish, I just straight up forgot yesterday was Thursday lol.
> 
> TIME HAS NO MEANING ANYMORE EMBRACE THE CHAOS

They putter around the ‘grounds’ at a gentle place. Dean reaches over for Cas’s hand again, making sure he notices the movement so that the touch doesn’t come as a surprise. He’s learning.

He might have expected Cas to be a little nervy about this – out in the open, under the trees where shadows could hide anything, trick the eye. There’s no sign of that, though. He looks every bit as comfortable as he does shuffling through the bunker’s halls. Dean doesn’t want to say anything in case it’s only because Cas isn’t thinking about it, and suddenly the moment is broken and everything is ruined.

Instead, Dean just listens to Cas talk. He starts out the walk pointing out the flora and fauna, but there’s not a huge amount of variety, so soon he’s meandering over into interesting, and increasingly weird and obscure, facts.

“The box elder was – and still is – used by many native tribes, and for a large variety of reasons. The Najavo make them into bellows, whereas the Cheyenne prefer to burn the wood as incense for spiritual matters and ceremonies. They also made candy from them.”

“I didn’t know you knew so much about the history of this country.” Charlie sounds impressed.

“I used to be able to talk for hours about the lives of people from every culture that ever walked the earth. Now it’s just scraps.” Cas’s tone turns bitter, as it does every time he’s reminded of the swathes of knowledge he’s forgotten.

Dean, sensing a darker mood approaching, quickly tries to distract him.

“Who the fuck eats wood as candy?” He knows he’s being offensive, and he’s not stupid, he’s pretty sure it’s whatever their equivalent of maple syrup is or something, but hey. If it distracts Cas.

“Actually they make it from the sap.” Cas gives Dean a dark look, like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Look at you, Mr Know It All.” Dean says with a grin. “Well, you’re not the only one who knows about nature. Like, did you know that tree over there,” he points randomly to the side, “isn’t actually a box maple at all. It’s actually one of the lesser known subspecies of Ent.”

“But Dean,” Charlie joins in, delighting in the look on Cas’s face, like he’s struggling not to laugh and he’s quite pissed off about it. “If it’s an Ent, why hasn’t moved – or talked to us. Are you sure it’s not a Huorn?”

“Ah, well, no. An easy mistake to make, very few people have actually ever encountered this subspecies knowingly because of a combination of their incredible laziness, and their overwhelming contempt for humanity.”

“Are you describing the tree, or Cas?”

Cas narrows his eyes at her. “I like your species in the abstract. I’m starting to have doubts about the members represented here.”

“Your words, they wound me.” Charlie holds a hand to her chest and pretends to swoon.

“Ideally I’d like to storm off in a huff now, but I can’t move fast enough – so if you two would just oblige me by leaving while I stand still, that would be wonderful.”

*

Cas’s energy runs out pretty quickly. He makes a token attempt to hide it at first, but quickly realises that unless he says something he’s likely to end up collapsed on the floor and then Charlie and Dean will definitely notice – and probably be quite annoyed.

“Can I cash in on that bridal carry?” He asks, only half joking.

“Any time, buddy. You wanna head back or would you like me to parade you around the grounds?”

“Do what you want, as long as I don’t have to be conscious for it.”

Dean laughs. “Back it is. You wanna carry on looking without us, Hermione, or are we all done for the day?”

“Yeah, like I’m gonna stay out in the forest by myself in the middle of nowhere. Dream on.”

“Charlie, I know for a fact you’ve killed monsters.”

“And? I was expecting them, a mysterious serial killer hiding in the woods would have the drop on me – and I can’t exactly drive it off with holy water.”

“Dean, stop trying to get Charlie killed and carry me home.”

Dean laughs. “Okay, okay. Am I actually carrying you, though, or are we just turning back?”

“How far are we?”

“15 minutes at my pace, probably quite a bit longer at yours.”

Cas grimaces. He’s done the classically stupid thing of walking until his strength is about to give out, and then realising that he should have turned back half the journey ago. The idea of Dean carrying him back doesn’t particularly appeal – it’s a lot of touching, and he has no way of warning Dean to avoid his back without arousing suspicion – but equally, he’s not going to be able to walk all that way.

“I, can we try it. See how it feels?”

“F’course we can. What’s gonna be most comfortable for you? Fireman’s, bridal, whatever the other carries are called that I don’t know the name of?”

“You’ve never heard of a piggyback ride?” Charlie teases, because c’mon.

“Shuddup. What’s it to be, Cas?”

“Piggyback ride sounds good.” It’s ideal – his back won’t be touched and, as long as he leans forward over Dean’s shoulder, he’ll barely have to support any of his own weight.

Dean looks a shade disappointed, clearly hoping for something more romantic, but at least Charlie joked about it so he only thinks Cas is doing it to tease him.

“Piggyback it is. Charlie, if you help him up.”

*

It’s a fucking relief to get through the bunker’s door and deposit Cas, fast asleep because apparently that’s something he’s capable of doing while riding on Dean’s back, on the bed.

Not that Dean didn’t enjoy every fucking minute of it, he did. That’s, that’s kinda the problem. A lot of physical contact for a dude who’s not had a chance to get intimate with the person he loves for a damn long time.

Charlie notices. “You’re looking at him like a dog looks at a butcher’s shop.”

“I can’t help it, man, it’s killing me. He’s so close, he’s actually _here_ and it doesn’t matter that he looks like a fucking breeze could take him away, he’s still hot.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being shallow or not with that comment.” Charlie observes with a wry smile.

“Me neither. I just wanna jump his bones.”

“How do you know he doesn’t feel the same way? I’ve had enough distressed texts from Sam that I know he’s as much of a gross horndog as you are. Possibly worse.”

Dean shrugs. “We’re taking it slow. He’s still a hundred kinds of shook up – I mean, Jesus, it’s been weeks and we’ve just about hit hand holding.”

“You want to push on faster?”

“Not until he’s ready, I’m not a fucking monster, Charlie.”

She holds up her hands. “Never said you were. You know there’s only one answer for your problem, right?”

“What?”

“Jesus, don’t make me spell it out for you. I’ve already thought about your dude-parts more in this conversation than I ever want to for the rest of my life combined.”

Dean snorts. “You brought it up.”

“I was trying to be a supportive friend. A mistake I’ll never make again!”

*

Dean turns on the hot water and locks the bathroom door. He’s already half hard just from thinking about Cas, but he doesn’t dive in straight away. He’s gonna take this slowly.

He has a brief moral tussle with himself over whether it’s okay to think about Cas while he jerks himself off, decides it’s probably okay. It’s not like they’re broken up or anything, they’re still together, they’re still intimate and in love and all that other terrifying stuff. It’s just they’re taking it slow.

Thinking about Cas is fine, it’s acting on those thoughts without letting Cas make the first move that would be the problem.

Dean steps under the spray, shudders with delight at the heat. He runs a hand through his hair, and then again, harder this time, gives a little tug. He makes a barely audible, closed mouth moan. Tugs again and does it a little louder this time. He brings his other hand up to his chest and trails it delicately around, up and down, adding a hint of nail – just enough to make goosebumps stutter up and down his arms but not enough to hurt.

He pictures Cas in front of him – Cas as he used to be, before all this. He stamps down the twinge of guilt – it’s necessity. He hasn’t seen Cas naked since, doesn’t know what he looks like under his clothes. But he wants to, oh god he wants to. He wasn’t lying to Charlie earlier when he said he still thought Cas was the hottest guy on the planet. Cas’d be hot whatever he looked like. It’s not just his physical appearance that Dean loves, it’s the way he holds his body, the way he fills the flesh like he was born into it.

He pictures Cas in jeans and a white shirt, stripping off slowly, tauntingly. First the tie, pulled loose around his neck, out from under the his collar but just left there as he unbuttons the shirt. Dean lets his hand drift to one of his nipples, tweaks it in time with Cas undoing each button, letting all that glorious tanned flesh out on show.

The shirt is shrugged off, but the tie kept on, pulled half out and jauntily debauched. Dean groans as Cas reaches a hand down to his waistband, undoes the button with a pop that’s so vivid in Dean’s mind, he swears he can hear it. Dean moans, traces his fingers across his chest again, getting lower with each sweep until his fingertips are catching on the hair above his cock.

He still doesn’t let himself touch, it’s the buildup that makes it. Getting yourself off is an art, and he isn’t going to rush it no matter how fucking badly he wants to. The art of self-denial is one he’s mastered, and he’s using all his skills now to get himself as hot as possible.

He wishes he’d brought a fucking dildo, wishes he’d had the foresight and the patience to open himself up, press it in and pretend it was Cas there, Cas draped over his back, rocking back and forward and –

His hand drops to his cock as Cas kicks out of his jeans and Dean groans, it’s too much, it’s too much and he can’t take it. He allows himself one, quick stroke and then his hand flicks back up to his chest, nails digging in harder now, almost painfully. He can see the outline of Cas’s cock though his boxers and he wants it, he needs it. He wants to taste it, he hasn’t had the chance in so long and he misses it like a goddamn ache. The weight and the feel, the knowledge that the tremors of bliss wracking through Cas’s body are all his, the answering arousal roiling in his gut, demanding he satisfy Cas, demanding he swallow him down as he finally fucking comes.

Cas pulls off his boxers and drops them to the floor, and Dean wants to fall to his knees. He stops tugging at his hair, drops a hand to his ass and fingers the rim gently. He wants Cas’s tongue in there, he wants Cas’s hands in there. He wants fucking anything of Cas’s in there.

But he can settle for this.

He watches Cas fist his cock, once, twice, long, slow pulls – and Dean copies him, shadows the movement. He’s so taut it’s not going to take long, one two and—

“FUCK!” He punches the wall of the shower hard enough that he’s gonna feel it later, but that’s fine, more than goddamn fine actually. Yeah it would’ve been nice to have Cas actually there, but this is a decent second. A very decent second.

He stays there a moment to get his breath back, cleans himself off and wipes down the mess he’s left on the wall. He even sprays a few pumps of deodorant to cover up any lingering smells, ‘cause he’s a goddamn treasure of a roommate.


	28. Since When Is Murder a ‘Supplier Issue’?

“So,” Charlie begins, walking into the living room with a laptop balanced on one arm and a great, big folded map over the other. “I’ve done a little digging and I have good news and bad news.”

She spreads the map out across the sofa-bed where Dean and Cas are sitting watching dumb cartoons (Dean) and drifting in and out of sleep (Cas), and then plonks the laptop down too.

“This is very analogue for you.” Dean says. “What happened to G-maps?”

Charlie raises a single eyebrow in such a perfect expression of derision that even Cas feels like he should be taking notes. “It’s Google maps, but bless you for trying.”

“I was shortening it. That’s what you kids do now. Life’s too short to say full words, right?”

“Anyway.” Cas interrupts. “The map?”

“Oh yeah. Well sometimes paper is better for thinking big scale. Nothing wrong with a bit of retro when it’s called for.”

“Amen.” Dean ‘ _CD’s are too high tech for my car’_ Winchester unsurprisingly agrees.

“So anyway, the MoL—”

“See – young people shortening things!” Dean interrupts.

“I’m only 6 years younger than you, Dean. Shut up.”

“6 years is a long time, kid. Respect your elders.”

“6 years is barely a nanosecond, and, as the only genuinely old person here, my patience with your ridiculous childish squabbling is wearing thin.” Cas grumbles, pulling a crotchety old man face.

“You heard grandad.” Charlie says, and Dean grimaces

“Don’t call him that, for the love of God.”

“ANYWAY.” Cas feels the need to raise his voice, feeling somewhat like a teacher trying to shepherd two unruly schoolchildren.

“Yes. So, anyway. Gardens.” Charlie begins.

That gets Dean’s attention, thank fuck.

“They had plans for this place in the 50’s. The sheen had worn off a little and they were starting to think about improvements. So get this—”

“Oh god, she’s channelling Sam.”

“Would you just shut up and let her talk, Dean?”

“Yessir. Sorry sir.” Dean’s excited, and he can’t help that it’s spilling over into being a cheeky, borderline-annoying little git.

“Cas, dude, can you please reign in your idiot?” Charlie asks.

He looks at Dean doubtfully. “I think he’s past saving. Perhaps we should just abandon him in the woods.”

“Nah, his homing instincts are too good. It’d have to be at least one state over.”

“You drive, I’ll get the keys.”

“Yeah, yeah, hilarious guys.” Dean pouts. “I’m sorry, I’m prepared to listen, I promise.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.” Charlie says.

“Promise.” Dean says, full force of his stupid green soulful eyes lasered on Charlie.

“Hmm. So, the _Men of Letters_ ,” she stresses the full name, “were getting very keen on self sufficiency. Sure they could afford to buy their herbs and spell ingredients from whoever had them going, but then you have supplier issues – droughts, murders, traceability, that sort of stuff – to deal with.”

“I’m sorry, did you just refer to _murder_ as a supplier issue?” Dean asks.

“More common in magic circles than you think. Magic store owners have a higher mortality rate than black witches.” Charlie says casually, like this is a normal thing to know.

“Why the hell do people do it, then?”

“Money. It’s a lucrative field if you have the balls for it – and the fighting skills.” Cas notes drily.

Charlie nods. “Anyway, back to the point – the Men of Letters were very into the idea of gardening.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Well, that’s the good news. They cleared out three plots, two for allotments and one for a greenhouse.Unfortunately the bad news is that they never got as far as planting anything – or even digging the ground out as far as I can tell. Last entry is a few weeks before Abaddon shows up, and, well. We know nothing much happened after that.”

Dean snorts. “You don’t say.”

“So what does that mean?” Cas asks.

“It means that even if these plots are still clear of trees – possible, but not guaranteed – there’ll be a lot of work to do to clear them of 60-odd years worth of other growth.”

Dean shrugs, all smiling bravado. “We like a physical challenge.”

“ _You_ like a physical challenge.” Cas corrects him. “I’m project managing.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. So what’re we thinking, greenhouses and two groundy bits like the plans were, or are we gonna mix it up?”

“I think we should check out the land first – might be they’ve all been reclaimed.”

“Yeah Captain-getting-ahead-of-himself.”

“That’s not even – you can’t just stick Captain in front of an insult and make it work, Charlie.”

“Alright, Captain pedantic.”

Dean drops his head to his hands in mock despair. “Why do I even bother?”

“Because you enjoy it really.” Cas says. “Now Charlie, I assume the map is to show us where the plots are?”

“Correct, my friend. So this is the bunker,” she points to a great big red x, just for idiotproofing purposes, “and these are the three locations.” She indicates three circles. One pretty close by, but the others much more considerable of a walk away. “I’m pretty sure these are accurate – you would not believe the ballache I had trying to work it out. Either the Men of Letters were not a fan of GPS co-ordinates or they just assumed it’d be so obvious why bother writing it down. I had to spend an hour fucking about with maps and light tables.”

“And we’re very grateful for your effort, Charlie. Of course.” Cas, apparently ever the diplomat, reassures her.

“Damn straight. So, obviously we’re hoping the first one is suitable, ‘cause that’s like a five minutes stroll verses a 45 minute one. Probably more for you, Sir Limpsalot.”

Dean looks scandalised, but Cas just snorts. “Harsh, but fair.”

“So, c’mon.” Dean says. “Stop dragging this out, is it good news or not?”

“I don’t know yet. I thought we could check out the satellite pictures together first, and if that doesn’t help, go on foot.”

“Have you not looked already?”

“Jesus, Dean. Do you listen when I talk? I thought we could share the excitement you asshat.”

“My bad, my bad.” He holds his hands up to ward off any oncoming attack, but finds none. “So, start off with the one furthest away – warm ourselves up for the big one?”

“You are such a dork.”

“You’re the one who wanted to make this a team bonding exercise.”

“.......shuddup.”

“Shall we hold hands and pray?” Cas deadpans, rolling his eyes.

“Okay wiseass. C’mon Charlie, do your laptop thing.”

It’s not good news.

“Are you sure we’re looking at the right spot?” Dean asks, looking sceptically at an indistinct patch of forest.

“Yes, asshole. But feel free to try again yourself and satisfy your ridiculous inability to trust something until you’ve done it yourself.” Charlie ticks Dean off in a mild tone.

Cas can see Dean’s hand twitching with the desire to do just that, and he calls him out on it.

“Even though she said that you still can’t resist, can you?”

“...maybe.”

Charlie sighs, pushes the laptop at him.

“Have-at it.”

“I’d just like to take this opportunity.” Cas says with a wicked grin, as Dean cross-checks Charlie’s co-ordinates against the map-lines, “to say that I trust your judgement, Charlie, and would never, _ever_ insult you by double checking your work.”

Dean gives him the finger and then snorts as he types in his co-ordinates and comes up with a spot almost on top of Charlie’s.

“Okay geniuses, you were right. Looks like the forest has taken it back. Unless—”

“If you suggest checking the original map I swear to god, Dean Winchester, I will kick you in the balls so hard every man in the northern hemisphere will get sympathy pain.”

Dean and Cas both wince, and Charlie, sadistic man hating lesbian that she is, winks.

“So, do you wanna do the honours on the second one, Dean? Since I feel like you’re just gonna ask to check my work anyway.” She teases, thumping him on the back.

Dean sheepishly works out the next set of co-ordinates, plugs them into Charlie’s satellite program thing – which, by the way, looks so illegal that it’s making even his _very-relaxed-about-crime_ fingers itch.

The result is... interesting. Overgrown looking, but no trees. Hard to tell what exactly is there what with the blurry satellite photo, but it looks promising.

“Are you sure that’s the right place?” Charlie asks, looking over Dean’s shoulder.

“Dude, what’re you talking about there’s no— oh. You’re calling me out for being a dick, aren’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Well ha-ha-ha. But hey, joking aside it looks like a decent potential spot, yeah? Even if it is a little far away.”

“Yup. A ballache, but a workable one. Now are you gonna do the third one before we all die of old age, or would it be quicker for me and Cas to walk there?”

“Alright, backseat map-reading much.”

Charlie makes a scoffing noise – _you can fucking talk dickhead._ Dean ignores her, tracing the lines to the final spot and plugging in the co-ordinates. Charlie closes her eyes before he hits enter, hands over her face.

“I can’t look.” She says eventually, hearing nothing much. “Is it good news or bad?”

“Good news.” Dean says. “I think. S’hard to tell from these grainy-ass pictures.”

“What’re those straight lines?” Charlie asks, looking at the screen.

“Walls, I think.”

“You do, huh?” Cas asks, with a delightful amount of scepticism.

“Hey, man. A lot of motel rooms with not a lot of channels. I’ve seen Time Team.”

“So you think it’s a collapsed building, not a garden?” Charlie asks.

“Doubt it. Building ain’t gonna crumble to dust in what, 50 years – I don’t think.”

They both look at Cas, who rolls his eyes.

“Not unless it was made of mud.”

“So yeah, walls. Maybe it’s like a walled garden? Stop nature getting a bit too close to their little herb patch?”

“Perhaps.”

“Wow, Cas. Please sound less excited.”

“No.” Cas says, with a grin that makes Dean want to knock him over and tickle him until he screams for mercy.

“Just once,” he says instead, “just once I’d like to be treated with respect in my own home.”

Charlie and Cas exchange a look and bust out laughing and just don’t stop. Every time one of them starts to calm down they catch the other’s eye and set themselves off again.

“Don’t think I won’t go without you.” Dean says, eventually, but there’s no heat to it. This is good, hearing Cas laugh – full throated and verging on the good kind of hysterical instead of the bad. Taking the piss with Charlie – even if it does happen to be at Dean’s expense. He’s used to that, though. Doesn’t take it personally.

He only wishes Sam was here, sat on the armchair and looking up over his book in pretend disapproval, or ragging Dean alongside the other two bastards. But it’s fine. He’ll be back soon, once he’s straightened out his head and he’s back on board with them.

Eventually idiots one and two calm down enough for Dean to wrangle them into outdoor clothes and through the door. Although Cas can’t resist snarking.

“How many layers are _you_ wearing, Dean. Wouldn’t want anyone to catch a cold.”

It’s like dealing with children. Sarcastic, annoying, sneery children. And he loves them.

Jesus, he’s feeling sappy today


	29. S’up Bitches, Let's Get Weeding

The garden is, well. It’s in need of some work, let’s put it that way. It hasn’t been overtaken by the forest, true, but every other plant in North America seems to have done it’s best to cram itself in.

Dean spots dandelions and thistles and, um. Some other plants, okay. What is this, a botany exam? There are plants, lots of them. End of.

“Looks like you were right about the wall.” Charlie says.

It’s about waist high, goes all the way around and has nary a crack or bit of damage. It looks so surprisingly well maintained that Dean starts wondering if they should be on the lookout for some rogue groundskeeper.

Cas solves that riddle, though, bending down carefully and tracing a finger over the stones.

“Sigils.” He says, after fondling the rocks for rather a long time. Long enough that Dean almost thought he’d fallen asleep sitting there. “I’d guess there are thousands of them carved into the stone. Spells, warnings, protections against everything from the elements to the undead.”

“Huh.” Dean says, stamping down the zombie question he SO BADLY wants to ask.

“Even without grace I can practically feel the thrum of all these spells. It’d be deafening to an angel.”

“So how come you didn’t find this place before?” Dean asks, more curiosity than an attack.

“The whole bunker is like this. It’s hard to filter exact locations when there’s so much white noise.”

“What’s that feel like?” Dean asks, curiosity overriding his better judgement. He hasn’t wanted to bring up Cas’s grace since the whole immune to angelic powers thing. Cas had claimed he was content with his lot as a human before, but now that he’s trapped in a shitty situation. Yeah, just seemed like an argument waiting to fuck the both of them up.

“The static in the air a moment before a storm.”

Damn, but he has a way with words.

“Didn’t that drive you mad?” Charlie asks.

“No.” Cas says, “Angels are much better at filtering background noise than humans. Sometimes I tuned into it on purpose, though.” His gaze drops away from Charlie, back to the wall. “Sometimes I needed the reminder, that the bunker was a safe haven for me and those that I hold dear.”

“So this place, it makes you feel safe?” Dean latches onto the easiest thing, the thing that won’t stir up so much joy and regret.

“Yes, just as safe as the bunker.”

That doesn’t reassure Dean, though. He’s piecing things together in his head and not liking the picture it throws up.

“You said this place was like an air-raid siren to an angel, right?”

Cas tips his head, not how he would have phrased it, but adequate.

“So does that mean that it’s a great big, glowing target on angel radar?” He’s trying not to sound as nervous as he suddenly feels.

“Not in the way you fear, no.”

“Gonna elaborate?” A little harsh, but there’s that creeping dread. An angel did this to Cas, and they’ve sequestered him in fucking Angel Beacon #1 to recover. Doesn’t set a good feeling running through Dean’s veins.

“The Men of Letters were clever – although whether deliberately or whether they were just tapping into a power source, I’m not sure – there’s a lot of residual magic in the ground the bunker is built on.”

“What the best way to hide a signal, under a louder one.” Charlie notes.

“Exactly. This place has been a blip on angel radar for a few hundred years. A bonfire hiding a candle.”

“Huh. Is that how they powered this place – infinite electricity from magic, that kinda crap?”

“I’d imagine that has more to do with the power plant it’s leeching from.” Cas says drily.

“You said a few hundred years, Cas.” Charlie says, curious. “Which means this ‘blip’ hasn’t been around for all that long.”

“No it hasn’t.” Cas says wearily. “You wont notice any standing stones, or ancient methods of channeling magic.”

“Blood magic?” Charlie guesses.

“Of a kind.” Cas says, with a look that declares this conversation very much over.

They take the hint.

“So, greenfingers, what’s the plan?” Dean asks Cas, surveying the tangled mess of flowers and brambles.

“Did the records indicate that the Men of Letters had begun planting this garden, Charlie, or had they merely prepared it?”

“Hoping there might be some rare stuff growing wild?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. Well according to their records they’d only cleared this bit of trees, not built a sigil-wall, so your guess is as good as mine. I’d wager not though, the last entry wasn’t long before Abaddon came a-knocking.”

“Figures.” Dean snorts. “Well, it’s probably worth a poke around, Cas, see if you can find anything worth saving before I tear it all up by the roots.”

Cas nods, starts slowly picking his way around the garden.

“You guys okay here for a bit while I run back to the bunker? Wanna check whether we’ve got the tools for the job or if I’m gonna have to do a Lowes run.”

Cas resists the urge to the urge to snark that he’s sure the Men of Letters didn’t dig out all of this ground with their bare hands as they wave Dean off. He goes with only minimal resistance. It’s clear that despite Cas’s claims as to the safety of the garden, Dean’s still a little sketchy about leaving him with just Charlie in case something goes down. He trusts Charlie, but it’s one thing to be able to defend yourself, a whole other thing to be able to defend a—

Cas cuts off that train of thought with a vicious shake of his head. The physical action helps, even if it does stir the beginnings of a headache at the base of his skull.

He potters around the garden at a gentle pace, identifying a couple of plants that he wouldn’t mind saving; yarrow, rosemary, something that looks like it might be woundwort, but mostly it’s just weeds.

Charlie finds an old, rusted tap embedded in the north wall and, with a bit of coaxing has it working by the time Dean comes back with an antique looking shovel, a pair of vicious looking garden sheers and a rucksack thrown over one shoulder.

“You dig up graves on a regular basis, and _that’s_ the best shovel you have to hand?” Cas asks incredulously.

“Most of my gear’s still in the Impala, wiseass.”

“Oh, did Sam take her?”

“Oh, uh. Nah. I left her in Colorado.”

Cas does a double-take.

“You left – what?” He’s too surprised to even joke.

“Yeah, she was uh, kinda big and obvious, and we had to do a little off-roading. She’s in good hands though, made sure of that.”

It’s jarring, to suddenly get confronted with how little they’ve talked about the events of the past few months. Cas didn’t even know Dean had abandoned the Impala. Dean doesn’t know, well. Dean doesn’t know a lot. It’s a conversation Cas doesn’t know how to broach, and he definitely isn’t going to do it now. Mutual silence has worked so far – probably more to Cas’s benefit than Dean’s.

“Why haven’t you gone back for her?” Cas asks, sidestepping as best he can.

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “Well, that was gonna be my first stop, y’know, when I was planning on the adios. But then you asked me to stay and I did, so yeah. Here we are.”

“Oh.”

“I was kinda, well. Kinda hoping that maybe we could go back and pick her up together at some point? All of us, down the line when you’re up for travelling. A mini road trip to bring her back home.”

Cas smiles, but there’s a degree of forcedness to it. He has complicated emotions towards Dean’s proposal – intense gratitude that Dean would hand the Impala over to a stranger for him – of course – but there’s a soupçon of guilt in there, too. The Impala isn’t just a car to Dean. It’s his legacy, his parents, his brother. It’s a huge part of his history – and Cas is the reason he’s away from it.

He’s holding Dean back.

He realises that he’s taking a little too long to answer, and that his smile isn’t entirely convincing, when Dean falters and says, “Yeah, well, but. Y’know. I mean I could just go and get her myself actually, no need to drag everyone else across state lines.”

“No, a road-trip sounds good. Honestly.”

“Hmm.”

Cas sighs, there’s no way he can sidestep the truth without hurting Dean’s feelings, is just gonna have to go ahead and spit it out.

“I just, I don’t want to delay you any longer than I already have – I know what that car means to you.”

“You’re more important, Cas. It’s fine.” Dean’s brusque tone is somewhat betrayed by the look on his face, the way he reaches out a hand towards Cas’s and then stops, like he thinks better of it.

Cas finishes the motion, pretends he can’t hear the hitch in Dean’s breath.

“You know that you come first, Cas. That you don’t have to feel guilty about me – about any of us- sticking around to help you out.”

“I know.”

“Y’wanna tell your face that?” Dean aims for a joke, isn’t quite sure he hits it.

“Just because I know it, doesn’t mean my ridiculous human brain always lets me believe it.”

“Self-loathing gremlins, sometimes they get loose. I’m always around to help stuff them back in the box, though. If you want.” Dean’s tone is gruff, almost as if he’s embarrassed by the offer.

“Thank you, Dean.”

Dean salutes, unable to let the moment pass without a degree of flippancy.

“At your service, captain.” Then he pauses, gets a bit more nervous, tentative. “So, uh. Not that hand holding isn’t fucking fantastic, but um. Can I hug you right now? Is that too far?”

Cas smiles. “I think I can survive a hug.”

*

Charlie watches the first part of the exchange from the other end of the garden before turning away and very slowly sitting down out of sight. She’s about 99% sure that they’ve forgotten about her, and while she can see that clearly whatever moment they’re having is private and not to be spied upon, it also looks too important to break up by reminding them that she’s still here.

*

Despite asking for Cas’s permission, Dean goes in tentatively. A barely there brush of his arms around Cas – practically not touching.

“I’m not going to break.” Cas gripes – though he knows he’s shown all evidence to the contrary. He takes a breath, it’s just a fucking hug after all, wraps his arms around Dean and squeezes.

It’s... embarrassing how good it feels. It’s just a hug, perhaps. It’s just physical contact for no reason other than because they want it. It’s not I never thought I’d see you again, it’s not I’m sorry you were hurting. It’s just you’re here and I’m here and I really want to touch you.

Dean stiffens for a moment, but then he clings back to Cas like a rhesus monkey. It’s enough to make Cas wonder, with a smile, what on earth they must look like. The whole situation is absurd, their reactions are absurd, and suddenly he can’t hold in a laugh anymore.

“What?” Dean mumbles into his ear. He sounds wary, like he’s not sure whether Cas is about to tell him he just farted, or that he never wants to see Dean again – but it’s definitely one of the two.

“It’s stupid.” Cas reassures.

“You can’t just start laughing when i’m trying to have a moment, dude. S’making me paranoid.”

“It’s a good thing.”

“A stupid good thing?”

“Yes.”

Dean sighs. “Stupid like you can’t believe you’ve become so sappy in your old age because a goddamn hug shouldn’t feel this good?”

“Yes.” Cas admits, to which Dean laughs.

“Well, me too, buddy. Not sure I’m gonna be able to let go now I’ve started, in all honesty.”

“That’s a shame.” Cas says, with zero sincerity.

“Yup.”

But of course, predictably enough, eventually Cas’s body betrays him and he adjusts his weight so most of it is on Dean. It helps, but surprisingly enough, Dean notices.

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly, tenderly into Cas’s ear.

“Mhm.”

“How about we take this party somewhere a little more horizontal, huh? We can, y’know...” He trails off, but because Cas is a wicked son of a bitch, he won’t let Dean get away with that.

“We can what?”

“We can cuddle, you bastard.” Dean mumbles into his shoulder.

“What happened to my garden, abandoned at the first sign that I might put out?”

“I’ll... put you out?”

“Smooth.”

“Shuddup. Now get off me, ya limpet. Don’t want you collapsing in my arms.”

Cas grunts, but does extricate himself and allow Dean to help him over to a spot by the wall that’s more grass than thorn.

“We need camping chairs – or deckchairs.”

“Not a deckchair. I’d be stuck in it forever.”

“I’d help you in and out of it, duh.”

“Who says I want to rely on your whims.”

“What about a hammock?”

“How is that better?”

“I’m thinking of your longterm comfort, assface.”

Cas swallows down the bitter reply that automatically curls around his tongue. Dean is teasing. This is lighthearted and fun bickering. No need to sour it and bring everyone down by telling Dean to stop bouncing forward to some magical future point where all this is okay and he’ll be able to get in and out of a hammock unaided.

Fuck.

“What happened to going back to the bunker?” He asks instead.

“I thought you could rest here for a little bit, get your energy back to walk while I make a start on the weeding and shit.”

Cas heaves out a long-suffering sigh.

“Well seeing as my only other option is to crawl back on hands and knees, I suppose this’ll have to do.”

“That’s the spirit.” Dean says, wielding a great big pair of sheers with a malicious look on his face. “Time to die, plants.”

Charlie decides this seems like an appropriate time to pop up from the other other side of the garden – luckily there’s 3G out here because man, that was uncomfortable intimate in places.

“S’up bitches, let’s get weeding.”

*

Charlie’s enthusiasm at pulling plants up by their roots quickly wanes, so Dean trades her the shears with a slightly mournful look, hefts the spade.

“It’s weird digging in daylight like this.” He notes. “I can actually see what I’m doing.”

“We can wait until dark if that makes you feel better.” Cas rasps from where he’s half asleep against the wall. The early spring sun is very pleasant on his face and he’s found a position where nothing much is digging into his injuries.

It’s easier to be calm out here, somehow. All of the iron clad safety of the bunker’s numerous wards and sigils with none of the claustrophobia, perhaps. The noise helps, too. The bunker is full of background noise, true, but it’s not quite as comforting as this. Birds and rustling leaves, distant cars on the highway and the laboured grunts of Charlie and Dean as they dig out the ground and do battle with nature.

He might feel bad about this act of environmental vandalism if he didn’t have big plans starting to percolate for this space. Anyway, most of what Dean and Charlie are clearing are invasive species – they’re doing the environment a favour.

He thinks he’ll carry on some of what the Men of Letters started, grow plants for their utility – although he’ll probably throw a few more food and herb crops into the mix. But he also thinks he’ll plant wildflowers and pollinators, and some purely for their aesthetics.

Almost everything he’s ever done or made has been valuable for it’s use. He thinks he’d rather like to nurture something beautiful for a change. Something ornamental and with no real use, but still valuable.

Life imitating art perhaps, or what Dean would call a little on the nose.

“Hmm, no thanks.” Dean’s voice breaks through his contemplative reverie. “The sun on my back makes this feel a little less like the day job.”

“What do you do when you have to dig up a body in winter?” Charlie asks. “I mean, it’s spring now and the ground is still pretty hard. How the fuck do you do this in January?”

“You hope it’s a relatively fresh grave and the earth hasn’t had time to settle.”

“And if it has?”

“Leave the hunt until summer – what’s a few more corpses, eh?”

Charlie looks over at him with narrowed eyes.

“I can’t even tell if you’re being serious.”

“Jesus, kid!” Dean yelps, actually offended. “Of course I wasn’t. You dig it up, just takes longer and hurts worse. Gotta be done regardless.”

“The glamorous life of a hunter, huh?”

Dean snorts. “It sounds so cool when you say _I hunt monsters, I save people._ No-one mentions the mud and guts and bodily fluids and tooth floss stitches.”

“How you grew up to be such a selective germaphobe will never cease to amaze me.” Cas says without opening his eyes.

“Nothing wrong with not wanting the flu, dude.”

“But septicaemia sounds like fun?”

“Am I getting a lecture or are we bantering, Cas?”

“Both.”

Dean laughs. “Whiskey’s an alcohol. That counts as antiseptic.”

Cas opens one eye lazily, just to roll it at Dean. A succinct _shut the fuck up, Dean_ if Dean ever saw one.

*

They pack up as the sun begins to set. Dean has to wake Cas with a gentle nudge when his name does nothing. As expected, Cas startles to consciousness with a shout, but Dean’s there in front of him – not too close, whispering like he’s dealing with a feral animal.

“Hey buddy.” He smiles, soft and fond. “Wanna take a look at what we’ve done so far?”

“No.” Cas says, closing his eyes again.

“You are a terrible project manager.”

“I’m showing trust in your skills by not overseeing you too closely.” Cas mumbles back, but it’s so goddamn garbled that it takes Dean a minute to understand. Eventually he laughs and rolls his eyes fondly.

“Alright, bossman. You wanna be carried back or under your own stream?”

“Piggyback.”

“You mean you don’t want me to lovingly embrace you in a bridal carry?”

“I want you to teleport me.”

“Yeah, good luck.”

“I bet there’s a spell for that. You’d learn that spell for me if—” Cas breaks off, suddenly aware that he was about to say _if you loved me._ Too soon, too much like asking for a whole visceral slog through painful memories. “—you weren’t such a germaphobe.” He covers quickly.

“Two hours ago it was ‘Dean, be more hygienic about looking after your wounds.’ Now it’s ‘Dean, cut yourself open with a pair of used gardening sheers to facilitate my laziness.’”

“Yes.”

Dean holds out a hand and Cas uses it to pull himself upright. He doesn’t wait for Dean to offer to pick him up again, just starts shambling towards the bunker.

Dean shrugs, puts his hands in his pockets and falls into step beside him. It’s been a funny old day. But a good one. Definitely a good one.


	30. Routine Checks

Charlie doesn’t hear the knock the first time. She’s got her headphones on, big fat over the ear beasts that vibrate your soul and rattle your bones. The world could be ending outside her door, the building around her crumbling to ash, and she wouldn’t know until the hellhounds started nipping at her ankles.

She’s halfheartedly attempting to read some Captain America comic. It’s not really grabbing her, but her compulsive need to know how everything ends has her by the (lack of) balls and it was so cheap she couldn’t resist.

In the gap between two songs – crossfade is for losers – she vaguely thinks she hears something. She pops one headphone off, listens for a moment. Nothing obvious, but she’s bored so what’s the harm in checking.

She opens the door to Cas’s retreating form. She drops her headphones to her shoulders.

“Hey, Cas. You want something?”

He turns around, looking relieved and apprehensive all at the same time. Which, yeah. Reassuring.

“Are you busy?” He asks, sighs when she shakes her head. “May I come in?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” She steps back to make room for him and he follows her in, shutting the door behind him.

“I have a favour to ask.”

“Sure.”

“I..” he frowns, like he can’t find the right word, or like he can’t quite push it out.

“What’s up, dude?”

“I need you to look at my bandages again, if that’s okay?”

Charlie nods. “C’mon then, show me the damage.”

“Can you help take off my shirt, it hurts to lift my arms?”

“Of course.” She notices he’s only wearing one layer – a short sleeved t-shirt – unheard of for a Winchester and also not exactly suited for living in an old ass concrete bunker. He must be freezing.

She asks him about it, and he makes a noncommittal little noise.

“Layers are too heavy, and the cold makes things feel… less uncomfortable.” He says, which is true. What he leaves unsaid is that if he dresses like this he doesn’t look like he’s hiding anything. Dean can see the bandages on his arms, assumes Cas is content with him seeing any damage.

Charlie accepts the answer and pulls his shirt over his head for him. When she sees his back she whistles. “Jesus, that looks—”

“Disgusting, yes.”

“Painful, buddy. I was going for painful.”

She’s seen this before, so it’s not like it’s a surprise, per se, but it feels like it should be better. Yeah his body is still weak, and his healing is sluggish at best, but there should be some visible kind of improvement.

By the state of the two bandages on his back, they aren’t being changed as often as they should. The right one is leaking a mix of blood and something that looks close enough to infected fluid that it sets her teeth on edge.

She knows Cas is concerned enough about wound hygiene that he bought a fucking great box of bandages off the internet for just this such occasion, and it worries her that this care seems to have gone by the wayside. Maybe he’s not doing as well as they thought.

“Honest question, Cas.” She asks, as she peels off the first bandage. “And feel free not to answer, this isn’t an attack. But, when is this gonna be healed enough that you’ll let Dean see it?”

He shrugs, and she winces when she sees what it does to the wound she’s uncovered, a thin dribble of liquid running down his back. He doesn’t flinch, even though it must have been agonising. How fucking hard is he working every single day not to let these show?

“’Cause, man. You know how deep these are—”

“As deep as it’s possible to get without killing me, yes.”

“Yeah, and I imagine hiding them is making you re-open them more than you would otherwise, isn’t it?”

Cas shrugs, and Charlie hisses out loud this time.

“You know even when they heal, the scars are gonna be big and obvious.”

“Yes.”

“So, when is Dean gonna see them – when you’re dead?”

“Ideally.”

“Cas—”

“I don’t know.” He snaps, ashamed at the look in her eye, and then he softens his tone, mutters at the floor, “I don’t know.”

“You know it’s gonna hurt him regardless, I know you know that.”

“Perhaps, but it’ll still be less painful for him to look at a healed wound than a fresh one.”

“A healed wound that you’ve kept hidden from him.”

Cas shrugs again and Charlie decides to let it drop – if only to stop him irritating the wound further. There’s nothing she’s gonna say that Cas hasn’t already thought of, that’s clear. All she can do is be here for him, and look after him – stop this goddamn thing getting infected. The last thing they need is to rush Cas off to hospital and Dean to find out that way. There’s no good way to handle this now that it’s been so long, but the least worst is gonna be Cas telling Dean himself.

“Alright you’re good to go.” She says as she finishes up. “Anything else that needs attending to?”

“No, that’s all. Thank you.”

”No problemo, they were looking pretty nasty. I wanna take a poke at them at least once a day from now on, no excuse.”

Cas nods. “And thank you for being so understanding.”

Charlie shrugs. “It’s your choice, dude. I won’t rat you out, but I still think you should tell him.”

“I know.” Cas says, and that’s the end of that.

*

Sam stays at Jody’s until Claire is due to return – no point sticking around longer and raising suspicion. Jody gives him a peck on the cheek and a stern warning to behave himself, and then gets in the car to drive off and fetch her errant charge.

Sam watches her go and then folds himself into his vehicle. He drums his hands on the wheel and debates his next move. He’s not exactly made his peace with Cas’s decision yet, but he doesn’t think he’s still in the rage and argue stage. He might be okay to go back.

He looks at his phone, hums and haws for a second, and then fires off a quick text to Charlie.

— Just leaving Jody’s

— You on your way back?

— Not sure.

— Fair enough.

— You think I should?

— What am I, your mom?

Sam snorts.

— Are they still angry? How’s Cas?

— I don’t think so. We’re keeping busy, think they miss you. I don't, obviously.

— You so too miss me. What’re you keeping busy with? Videogames? That doesn’t count.

— Screw you. We’re digging a garden.

Another text arrives before Sam can reply.

— Could probably do with your giant hulk-strength. Weeding is hard.

— Any reason you’re weeding a garden?

— Dean thought it’d be therapeutic for Cas

— Of course.

— You disagree?

— Maybe, kinda dangerous, out there in the open.

— Cas claims it’s warded.

— You believe him?

There’s a long pause between messages. Long enough that Sam realises he needs to start driving away from Jody’s house. 10 minutes into the journey his phone bzzes again and he pulls in at a gas station.

— I don’t see why Cas would lie.

Sam can think of a dozen reasons why he’d lie if he was in Cas’s place. Because he’s mad with cabin fever – fed up of being babied and trapped inside a concrete bunker. Or maybe, just maybe, because all the despair and self hatred are symptomatic of something deeper and nastier, and the reason he doesn’t want to heal faster has nothing to do it putting Dean in any danger, and everything to do with some kind of suicidal spiralling.

No. He has to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even if Cas was, y’know, he wouldn’t put Dean in danger like that, wouldn’t go somewhere there was any risk of attack.

Fuck, maybe he does need to stay away for a bit longer after all. He still hasn’t gone to pick up any of the gear Cas needs for his physio. Maybe he should do that now, decide on all the rest of this later.

— Yeah ‘course not. Good luck with the gardening, I’ll see you in a week or so, maybe.

— Stay safe.

*

Dean’s phone rumbles in his pocket and he silences it without looking. He knows what the alarm means, doesn’t need to check.

He looks around – everyone else has gone to bed. Well, technically Cas is passed out on the sofa-bed, but he’s unconscious enough that Dean’s sure he’s got some uninterrupted time ahead.

He prefers to do this alone, not because he’s ashamed of his own paranoia, necessarily, but more because he doesn’t want to remind Cas that the angel who tried to kill him is living and breathing a few metres away from him. But more than that – because lets face it, there’s no way Cas can forget that the reason he’s a shaky fucked up mess is so close by – Dean especially doesn’t want Cas to think he has even the smallest of doubts about the ability of their wards to hold the bastard.

Which, he does and he doesn’t. He trusts the wards, what he does’t trust is his own universe-offendingly bad luck. Or Cas’s, for that matter. Jesus, it’s a miracle that the combined might of their bad juju hasn’t killed them both already.

 _It fucking tried._ Dean thinks, waspishly, begins the fun-filled journey to the basement.

He’s been doing research. Not enough for the others to notice, but just about enough to understand how the wards the Men of Letters left behind work. They’re intricate, beautiful, if you’re into that sort of thing. Dean’s been adding to them. Nothing extravagant, nothing like the original standard. Just every time the fear overtakes him, every time Cas has another attack, he sneaks down here and carves something into the floor or ceiling. It’s nothing earth-shatteringly clever – if the goddamn angel gets past the chains and the holy fire like fuck a few scratches on the walls are gonna stop him – but it will buy them time. Slow him down and make it more likely he’s gonna get discovered.

Really they need to deal with Cahor but, but. But. But he hasn’t escaped yet and Dean doesn’t want to pile the burden of deciding his fate on Cas. Not while he’s still shaky. Hannah thought she was granting Cas a justice by giving him leave to deal with Cahor – or, Dean thinks in his darker, crueller moments, maybe she thought she was doling out a punishment.

No. However much she hates Dean and Sam and probably even Charlie for dragging Cas into their orbit, she goddamn loves Cas. Loves him probably as much as Dean does. She’s just too rigid, too righteous and selfless to let it consume her like Dean has. To ignore common sense and concerns for Cas’s safety and plough ahead.

She doesn’t even hate Dean because he’s a rival for Cas’s affection. She hates him because she thinks he’s taken so much from Cas’s goddamn life and doesn’t give anywhere near enough back.

And Jesus, fuck. Dean thinks, pocketing his penknife and examining the marks he’s left on the wall, maybe she’s got a point.

But there’s only so long he can put this off by ruminating about Hannah’s motives, he’s gotta get on in there.

Maybe he should rig up some sort of weapon – a last minute failsafe that launches a fucking angel blade or a burst of holy fire. A just in case, last resort failsafe to make sure Cahor really can never—

Stop.

He rechecks the wards in the corridor carefully and with a hunter’s eye for detail. Not even a hairline crack or an unfortunately placed mote of dust.

He pops his earphones out of his pocket, nestles the earbuds in and hits shuffle. Folsom Prison Blues starts up and he grits his teeth, mutters at Spotify to fuck off and skips ahead a track as he opens the door. He swears the goddamn app exists to troll him. Or Charlie’s been messing with the algorithms for a prank or something. Can she even do that? Probably. It’s is fucking Charlie.

He avoids looking at Cahor as he checks the wards in the room, steps over the pipe that holds the holy oil. It’s something he’s proud of – he and Charlie rigged it up, with some terse advice from Hannah. The pipe keeps the oil from evaporating or being disturbed, but the material is flammable. The moment Cahor moves out of place and activates the motion sensor, the whole thing goes up in flames and sets off alarms throughout the bunker.

Much more efficient than keeping a perpetually burning ring of holy oil, and with a built in warning system, too.

Dean taps the app on his phone that controls the whole shebang, gives his thumbprint and enters the passcode. He’s not paranoid, he’s fucking not. He puts the system in diagnostic mode, just like Charlie showed him. All fine.

His itchy paranoia nags at him to test it properly, try and set it off. But if he does that he’s going to need a new pipe and oil and to redo the whole circuit, which he then wouldn’t be able to test without using. He’ll know for certain it works when the moment arrives. Although if Charlie heard him say that she’d give him a clip around the ear and tell him to trust the goddamn machines.

He saves the worst bit for last. Checking Cahor’s cuffs. He disables the motion sensor and approaches the angel. He didn’t have music the first time, could hear every goddamn word the bastard spewed out. It was a mistake he won’t make again.

Cahor usually submits to the inspection with minimal resistance, but Dean’s not stupid enough to let his guard down. He flips the cuffs over and checks to make sure the sigils are still intact, that they’re still tight around Cahor’s wrists.

He senses movement rather than sees it, jerks back out of the way of the headbutt with a curse. Cahor’s hands lash forward and he yanks Dean’s headphones out of his phone and now he can fucking hear him oh god.

“So eager to visit but never to talk. Don’t you want to hear about Castiel?”

Dean lashes out, a quick jab to the nose that connects with a muted crunch. There’s blood, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t broken.

“Shut the fuck up.” Dean mumbles, snatches the headphones back and plugs them back in. The stupid music autopaused though, so he can still hear.

“Don’t you want to know what I did to him?”

Dean dashes out of there. He does want to know, he really fucking does, but it’s Cas’s place to tell him – if he ever does. He can’t let himself be tempted.

He’s stood in the corridor re-activating the motion sensor when he hears footsteps coming down the stairs. Charlie. She gives him a knowing look.

“There’s blood on your headphones.” She says, and then turns around and walks back the way she came. Dean watches her go. There’s only one place this corridor leads, only one reason anyone would come down here.

Looks like Dean isn’t the only paranoid one.


	31. Blood In Your Mouth

Cas hasn’t always dreamt like a human. When he was in the process of falling, all the way back in 2010, his dreams were as much a mongrel as he was – angelic memories and concepts twisted and mutated by the neural pathways of a fragile, human mind.

Colours, and noise, and deep, bright swells of emotion. He awoke from them with a strange taste in his mouth and a sort of melancholy nostalgia. Not for the life he once lived, not really. More for the things he’d miss out on in the future – the swirling beauty of human souls under their skin, the subtle presence of those angels he still considered kin in the corner of his consciousness.

Nostalgia for a future he’d never have, he thought.

And then he’d become an angel again, and then human, and then a tainted half and half. And then he’d sacrificed that for Dean, free and clear of regret.

His dreams immediately after that had been relatively normal. Surreal chains of events that made no sense, or sometimes verging on the annoyingly mundane – realistic enough that he thought he’d done whatever little chore he needed to do the next day, until Dean started passive aggressively hinting that he had, in fact, not.

This is the first time he’s ever dreamed one of his own memories.

_He’s naked, shivering despite the warmth of a thick blanket. He wants to throw it off, the sensation agony – itching and boiling. Every point where something touches his oversensitive skin feels like it’s on fire, but whenever he kicks it off, someone tuts and lays it over him again._

_“You’ll catch your death of a cold.”_

_Cas recognises the voice warily. It comes with either pleasure or pain. A beating, or bliss. He tries to analyse the tone – it doesn’t sound vindictive, but neither is it the tone that means the needle and grace and the chance to fly again.That’s a very specific tone, one that gives Cas a phantom echo of pleasure in his gut every time. Pavlovian, by now._

_The beatings are less predictable. They only come when he’s like this, in the dull aching dip of withdrawal, when he can’t even bear gentle touch, never mind fists and boots. But they end eventually, they always end._

_“Please.” Cas feels his voice crack, doesn’t much care. He needs, he needs. He passed the point of pride a long while ago._

_“You’re eager. I’m afraid you’ve got a little while to wait. But, if you’re bored, I can always find some way to entertain you.”_

_Cas curls in on himself. He knows what entertainment means. He should have kept quiet, but he had to ask. Sometimes that’s all it takes, for him to beg and plead and fawn. It’s nearly time, it must be. He needs, he needs it more than he needs not to be hurt._

_“Please.” He whispers, feels the mattress sink as Cahor kneels over him. Cas knows not to make eye-contact, the same way he knows he’s not supposed to use that name. The faintest spark of rebellion left in the only place it’s safe to have it, in his mind._

_A hand grips his hair and pulls his head up. Cas suppresses a pained yelp at the touch, can’t keep the next one in as a fist drives into his face._

_“Pathetic.” Cahor snorts, hits him again and again until Cas can taste blood, until he can barely see for a white sheen clawing from the edges of his vision inwards._

_The ringing in his ears resolves into something sharper, something actually present in the real world, and even through the fug of the beating he knows what it is. He starts shaking with anticipation. Any minute now, as long as he’s patient, as long as he does what he’s told and doesn’t cause trouble._

_Cahor climbs off the bed and silences the alarm, but then he does nothing. The silence stretches and stretches and Cas’s anticipation is tinged with fear now. What if this time is different, what if he doesn’t get it. What if he’s stuck like this forever—_

_“Lick it off.” Cahor says, proffering his bloody fist. Cas does, without hesitation. His stomach growls as he does, as if hoping it’s about to be filled. It’s so long since he last ate that it’s nearly concave now, but he doesn’t care. He’s so close to his fix, and it’s all he can think about. It’s all he’ll ever think about again._

_Cahor wipes the spit on Cas’s face, snorting when the sensation makes him flinch. He goes to the table and Cas hears the syringe being drawn, does his best to suppress a whine of delight. He’s made that mistake before, had the syringe smashed on the floor._

_The belt that lives permanently on his right arm now – it used to be the left – is tightened and here it comes._

_The pinprick of pain and then_

_and then_

_And then everything is perfect._

_*_

Cas wakes up slow and warm. There’s a thick, dreadful heaviness to his limbs, and phantom sparks of bliss stuttering through his belly.

He wants, oh how he wants.

He wants to throw up, and he wants to lie here and savour the echoed high until it wears off, and he wants the memories of how desperately, pathetically needy he was to dispel themselves and never darken his conscious or unconscious mind again.

But mostly, he wants to shoot up.

He feels awful, violated and riven with self-disgust. He hates that this has followed him from that bed to his and Dean’s, hates that for all that dream was mostly a nightmare, the end felt goddamn good – almost worth it. He hates the nuance, just wants to carve out all of the good sensations he felt during those 3 months and set them on goddamn fire.

He doesn’t want to wake up warm and craving the high that was forced on him over and over again, until he didn’t think he could live without it, until he’d do fucking anything to maintain it.

“Cas?”

And now he’s woken Dean up. Great. He tries to say something and it comes out indistinguishable behind teeth he didn’t realise were clenched. He forces himself to relax somewhat, and tries again.

“Yes?” He addresses the wall, refusing to turn and face Dean like this.

“You alright there buddy, you were shaking?”

“Just dreaming.”

Dean sits up so fast it jolts the bed, causes Cas’s teeth to click together painfully. “A nightmare?”

“What do you think?” Cas snaps, because at least if he provokes a fight that’ll distract him from this mess. He can almost sense Dean’s flinch behind him, the outstretched hand that wants to but won’t touch. He’s going to be understanding, and tender, and by god Cas wishes he wouldn’t. He doesn’t deserve that, doesn’t want it either. The silence stretches, and Cas can’t bear to not see the expression on Dean’s face suddenly, needs to know if it matches what he’s imagining; pity for Cas and a low simmering kind of hatred for himself that he can’t do more.

Cas turns over, but there’s none of that. Dean’s features are so carefully neutral that Cas knows he’s schooling them. He’s had his own fair share of nightmares, Cas realises, is probably trying to avoid things he knows would set himself off, make it worse.

“You sound pretty shook up, wanna talk about it?” Dean asks, and it’s an invitation, not a demand.

Cas doesn’t, though. All he wants is to get Dean out of the room so he can go chasing a hit. He starts to form the words, a request for a glass of water or something else more time consuming. And then he bites his tongue, hard.

“Hey, shit, man. If you didn’t want to talk that bad you coulda said. No need to turn yourself into a mute.” Dean jokes, but his voice is thin and strained.

“I dreamed I was high.” Cas admits, and the taste of blood in his mouth feels like a fitting accompaniment. Sharp and wrong but oh so wearyingly familiar.

“Oh.” Dean says, and Cas nearly laughs. Oh. The whole of the english language and a slapdash host of dead ones to choose from, and Dean goes with ‘oh’.

“I was thinking about how I could get rid of you. Some way I could escape and find a way to get high again.” It’s not a deliberate attempt to avoid talking about his dream. Probably.

“But you decided not to?” Dean sounds relieved and tense all at the same time.

“But I realised it wouldn’t work, so there was no point in trying.”

Dean runs a hand through his hair, and Cas takes pity on his stricken expression. He’s never been good at the line between honesty and needless cruelty.

“Having you here helps. I can look at you and remind myself that,” he trails off, not quite sure what it is that Dean reminds him of.

Dean doesn’t seem to notice the broken thought. He just looks pensive, practically sighing and ringing his hands.

“You can tell me things like this, you know.” He manages eventually. “I know you want to avoid hurting me, but fuck. I can take it. I’d rather know what was going on than have you sat there all suffering and noble.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t give me that crap, Cas. You’re worse than me and Sam sometimes. I get that maybe you’re not ready to talk about some shit, and I’m not gonna press you. But you _can_ talk to me, you get that, right? Because otherwise, what’s the point of having me around? I’m supposed to make things better for you, not force you to stuff all your trauma away and pretend it didn’t fucking happen.”

“Like you always do?”

“Jesus, Cas. You have a chance to be better than me. This stuff’s been drilled into my head since I was 4 years old and I’m trying to get past it, but you, you met me and just went ahead and picked up all my self-destructive bullshit habits and took them for yourself.”

“I picked up some of the good ones, too.” Cas says, just quiet enough for Dean to be able to pretend he hasn’t heard.

Dean doesn’t say anything straight away, and then he turns so he’s sitting cross legged, facing Cas.

“Sparse pickings there, Cas.”

“I’ve always admired your kindness.” Cas suspects that the key to complimenting Dean Winchester is to only throw out one at a time. A list he’ll rebuff without pausing, but focus on one thing and shut down any arguments he throws at you, and maybe, just maybe he’ll internalise the tiniest bit of it.

Cas can’t really tell in the dark, but he thinks Dean is blushing. He’s certainly flustered, fingers twitching against his leg. He’s not done yet, though. Has more to say.

“I don’t want to burden you with every single immaterial twitch and twinge, even though I know you’re kind enough to let me.” Cas says, to forestall whatever is coming.

“And if I want you to burden me?”

“You can’t always get what you want, Dean.”

“Yeah, well.” His voice is gruff, but Cas can’t quite place the emotion behind it. “Tough shit, I’m a stubborn asshole and I ain’t letting this go.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it, okay?”

“Okay I’ll tell you, when I’m ready.”

He can almost feel the scepticism radiating off Dean, and yeah. Okay, he obviously gave up a bit too easily there to be believed.

“That easy, huh?”

“I promise.”

Dean smiles, tentative but warm. “Good.” He reaches out a hand towards Cas, stops barely an inch away to let Cas make the final movement. He does, but he only gets a moment before Dean lets go, swearing. He flips on the main light and gestures to Cas’s hands.

“You’re bleeding, dude. Tell me you noticed you’re bleeding.”

“I, uh. I felt a stinging, I think?”

“Jesus.” Dean mutters, as he comes back to the bed to examine the damage, but it’s with more disbelief than malice. “How bad are you usually hurting if that barely registers?” He jokes, not realising he’s so close to stumbling on the truth.

“It’s not that bad, Dean.”

Dean tuts dismissively, holds a hand out and waits to see if Cas is okay with him performing a proper examination. Cas acquiesces, ignoring Dean’s pained noise when he sees the bloody crescents sliced by Cas’s jagged fingernails.

“Alright, so first things first, we’re gonna have to cut your nails, Victor Creed.”

Cas smiles. “I didn’t know you were an X-Men fan.”

“I’m not, I just hang around Charlie too much.”

“Mhmm.”

Dean disappears to the bathroom for a moment and then comes back with a pair of clippers and some bandages.

“They’re only shallow.” Cas protests when he sees Dean’s medical supplies.

“Yeah, but the last thing you need right now is an infection, and plasters ain’t gonna stay on your palms. Now just lemme do this, ‘kay?”

Cas submits, allowing Dean to gently clean the wounds and bandage them up. He wouldn’t describe the feeling itself as nice – more painful and itchy – but the care that Dean does it with, the tender concentration on his face. It makes it bearable.

Dean checks the bandages once he’s done, gives a little snort.

“Makes you look like Jesus.” He says, which confuses Cas for a long moment until he fills in, “y’know, with the stigmata.”

“For a man who has no faith, you know an awful lot about the gospel.” Cas mutters.

“Yeah, well. If your dumbass religion was less keen on roping me into its apocalypses maybe my head’d be less full of your junk.”

“More space for tangential pop culture references?”

“I dunno what that word means but I’m gonna assume it’s an insult.” Dean says drily, and Cas smiles.

“In the Catholic faith stigmata were once considered a sign of great holiness. A sign that you’d been chosen for a special purpose by God.”

“Jesus, fuck. Not another one.” Dean complains, which brings a smirk to Cas’s lips. “Although hey, that’s a bright side to the whole self mutilation thing – we could freak out Sam and Charlie – tell them you’ve been given a holy mission.”

“Unless the mission is lying back down, I don’t think it’s going to be a resounding success.” Cas says.

“Right now your mission is to shuffle on here by the bin so I can clip your claws. I don’t wanna be finding bits of nail in the bed, thanks.”

Cas grumbles under his breath, but he moves to where Dean directs him.

“Do you find yourself clenching your hands a lot, like is this gonna happen again?”

“Sometimes. It helps, when things get overwhelming. I’ve not done it this badly before, though.”

Dean clicks his tongue as he thinks. “Okay, so what if I found you something to hold – like I dunno, a stress ball or something?”

“A stress ball?”

“Yeah, y’know, one of those squidgy things – you have ‘em and when you’re pissed or stressed you crush ‘em in your hand instead of rearranging some dude’s face.”

“Having something to hold might help.” He says, mostly to be polite.

“Lemme see what I can get hold of— hang on.”

Dean disappears out of the room and doesn’t return for a good ten minutes. Cas feels himself starting to get bored, twitchy. He finds himself clenching his hands again and even without the nails it hurts. He settles for tugging at the bedsheets instead, worrying at a loose thread until it starts to unravel.

When Dean returns he has two small rubber bouncing balls in one hand, and an elastic-band ball in the other. Cas raises an eyebrow.

“M’kay, couldn’t find an _actual_ stress ball – which considering how many apocalypses we’ve stumbled face first into it’s a goddamn miracle we’ve managed without one” Cas politely refrains from pointing out that it’s probably because the Winchester brothers tend to exercise their stress with silver knives and demon killing guns. “But I got some substitutes.”

He hands over one of the rubber balls. Cas accepts it, looks vacantly at it, unsure as to what Dean wants him to do now.

“Thank you?” He ventures.

Dean gives him a withering look. “Don’t pretend like I didn’t just catch you digging holes in the bed as I came in the door. Fidget with it – roll it or it or goddamn throw it or something.”

He gives it a squeeze, as per instructed, but for obvious reasons that just hurts. He tells Dean as much and Dean grimaces.

“Yeah, but you’ll do less damage with a ball than with your nails, right?

“I suppose.”

“How does the size feel – too big, too small?”

“Um, fine. Maybe a little small?”

“Hmm.” Dean stats pulling bands off the elastic-band ball until it’s a little bigger than the one Cas is holding. He trades them off.

“Better?”

“I suppose.”

Dean huffs out a little laugh at Cas’s unconvinced tone. “Maybe just like as a trial, carry it around and if you get the urge to gouge clean through your hand, do it to that thing instead?”

“It’s not really a conscious thing.” Cas reminds him.

“Yeah, well. Keep the ball in your hand maybe? That way it’ll still be able to take the damage for you.”

“I suppose.” Cas isn’t at all convinced, but Dean wants him to do this so why not try. And Dean has a point, it can’t hurt more than the nails.


	32. A Little Lightheaded

Dean hears a muffled “fuck” and the sound of something small and rubber skittering across the floor. He laughs, bends down and intercepts Cas’s rogue fidget ball – holds it out for him as he comes grumpily hobbling up the corridor after it.

“Alright butterfingers?” He teases as Cas takes it back.

Cas grunts at him. “It’s slippy.”

“It’s texturised rubber.” Dean points out. “It’s the opposite of slippy.”

There’s a pause where Cas tries to think of a comeback, and then; “.... shut up.”

Dean laughs as Cas snatches the thing back in his left hand and starts rolling it back and forth between his thumb and fingers. He hadn’t taken to it immediately – leaving it on the nightstand most days while his cuts healed – but after that he’d picked it up and barely put it down. Dean’d almost call it surgically attached, but, well. Cas’s jittery co-ordination and tendency to accidentally feck the thing across the room at any given moment would prove that painfully wrong.

Dean was a bit nervous about that – the first time Cas dropped the ball he’d braced himself for some sort of angry self-hatred spiral, _why can’t I even keep hold of a ball I’m worse than useless,_ that sort of thing. By some goddamn miracle, though, that’s not what happened. If anything it seems to have made Cas motivated to work on getting his co-ordination back up. He’s getting much better, the muscles in his hand starting to loosen up again and gain flexibility.

At this rate he’s going to have the uneven hand strength of a teenage boy.

And goddamn, now Dean’s thinking about Cas masturbating. Fantastic. Just what he needed right now. He’s already so godawful horny all the time, just being fucking close to Cas—

_STOP._

“I can get you a proper one of those, y’know.” Dean says, to distract himself. “An actual rubber ball, not just a lump of elastic bands. I’m sure they do them in different sizes.”

“I like this one.” Cas says. “The texture’s...” he casts around for the right word, “satisfying on my palm. I like it rougher...”

Dean nearly swallows his tongue, completely misses the end of that sentence. There really aren’t enough hours in the day for the amount of sneaky wanks he wants to have.

He’s gross and horny and he has no self control. Holy fuck.

“Dean?” He snaps back to reality when he hears his name – Cas’s tone somewhere between concerned and annoyed.

“Sorry, uh, I felt a little lightheaded for a second.” He expects to get called out on the lie immediately, but instead Cas frowns at him.

“You do look a little flushed. You might be coming down with something.”

He hesitates for a moment, puts his hand on Dean’s forehead to take his temperature. Dean can’t help an audible little gulp, which earns him a strange look but nothing else.

“You feel fine. When was the last time you ate?”

“Uh, breakfast?”

“That was hours ago. Sit down and I’ll cook you something.”

Dean does a double take.

“You want to cook?”

“Your powers of deduction are unparalleled. What gave it away?”

“No, just. Um—”

“I’m not going to dissolve into a screaming mess again, don’t worry.”

“I, yeah, no I get that. Just...”

“Just what?” Cas’s hackles are going up and no, he’s getting the wrong impression. It’s not that Dean doesn’t think he’s capable of making a simple meal. Okay, yeah he’s a little nervous about Cas hurting himself, but he knows better than to try and stop Cas just because of that.

“I’m supposed to be looking after you, buddy. Not the other way around.”

Cas narrows his eyes, suspicious. “I’m not an invalid.”

“Trust me, I know that—”

“Then why’re you treating me like one?”

“I’m not! I’m just, you’ve been through a lot and I’m trying to do nice things for you!”

“Are you just saying that so I won’t yell at you?” Cas still looks sceptical, but at least he’s not halfway to angry now.

“I just, look.” Dean sighs, “am I a little bit stressed at the idea of you cooking again after what happened last time? Yeah, of course. But, I mean, I’m not gonna stop you doing every little thing just on the off chance it hurts you. Jesus, falling down the stairs could kill you but I haven’t installed a fucking ramp yet, have I?” He’s worked himself up into a little indignant huff by the end, arms folded, but it eases away when Cas smiles fondly at him.

“Look at you, growing as a person.”

“Yeah, well. It had to happen some day.” He shrugs. “But yeah, I know you hate being babied—”

“I do no—”

“Dude. Shut up. You do, but I’m not trying to baby you or treat you like you’re helpless. I just wanna help you get better. Look after you and do all that stupid romantic ‘partners’ crap.” He makes air quotes around _partners._ It sounds dumb, but he’s too goddamn old to have a boyfriend and that’s a hard line in the sand.

“You have such a way with words.” Cas says, but he’s smiling again, so Dean figures he’s not taking offence. “And while I understand your need to mother hen me to prove that you love me—” he pauses to wait for Dean’s indignant squawk, but surprisingly there’s none forthcoming “—I also want to look after you. And I’m not going to get better just sitting on the sofa playing ps4.”

“Uh, that’s exactly how people recover, buddy.”

“Not me. Not you either. We both like to feel useful. Let me feel like I’m helping.” Dean purses his lips. He’s wavering, Cas can tell. “Besides, using a knife will allow me to practice my fine motor skills.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “You wanna persuade me to sit down and let you dick around the kitchen with razor sharp knives by reminding me that your hands are still a bit shaky?”

“Yes.” Cas says with a grin. “I won’t get better if I have no incentive.”

Dean gawps at Cas, unable to even get close to a coherent answer, “Thats not – that, I...” He trails off.

“See, it’s such a good idea that I’ve struck you entirely beyond speech.”

“No.” Dean manages, and Cas laughs now, scratchy and hoarse. “No that’s exactly _not_ what’s happening here.”

“How about a compromise? You teach me how to make something. That way we’re both involved.”

“Fine. What d’ya wanna learn?”

“I don’t know. Whatever.”

“Wow, good to see some passion there buddy.”

“Well, I figured you’d actually know what recipes you can cook, whereas I’d just be suggesting things at random and hoping your experience lives up to it, but if you’re insisting, lets make lobster bisque with a sea foam jus and—

“Okay, point made asshole. How about we have a poke through some of the recipe books in the corner and you stick a label in anything you like the sound of?”

“If I’m just following a recipe do I really need you to show me? You might as well just sit down and leave me to it.”

Dean throws his hands up in the air in mock dismay.

“You are impossible. I can teach you techniques, _Mr all of the pieces need to be the same size wait lemme get my ruler._ ”

“I did not use a ruler.”

“You were comparing cube sizes and shaving bits off, dude. Don’t split hairs.”

“It said equal sized cubes.”

“It meant approximately equal!”

“Well if it meant that, it should have said that.”

“Well it assumed the person cooking would have some tiny speck of common sense.”

They’ve had this ‘fight’ so many times it could be from a script. A jokey little bit of play acting that comes up every time Cas gets near the kitchen, or takes something too literally. It feels good to slip back into that routine. It feels almost normal.

They settle into comfortable silence as Cas picks the thinnest, weirdest and most obscure looking recipe book he can find from the kitchen shelf. At this point Dean can’t even tell if he’s doing it on purpose to be a dick, or because that’s genuinely what interests him. Dean’s just got his fingers crossed that he doesn’t end up having to eat anything super fucked up like sheep’s eyeballs or camel’s testicles or something.

There’s only one kind of balls he likes in his mouth and those are ones still attached to a human dude—

And no. Just no. He’s gonna cut that line of thought right off, and he is not gonna behave inappropriately while he’s trying to cook.

He’s a civilised man – mostly – he can reign it in. At least, until his now fucking twice daily shower.


	33. Target Practice

Dean wakes up with a jolt — every instinct burning with violent certainty that someone he loves is currently being hurt. He lunges out of the bed – no sign of Cas – and grabs the gun he keeps taped to the bedside table. Safer, Jody had assured him, than sleeping with it under his pillow, and just as easy to reach in a crisis.

The wards aren’t going off, and neither is _that_ alarm. Everything seems peaceful. Which means either everything is okay, or it’s something so big and so bad that it can duke out their protections.

He checks Charlie’s room first, cracks the door open and confirms that there’s a sleeping figure in there. That still leaves Cas unaccounted for. He checks the library first, empty, no sign of any struggle. He checks under the tables and in the stacks, mentally checks the room off as clear and moves on to the living room. The sofa-bed looks disturbed, someone has definitely been here. His heart kicks up half a notch. Blankets and cushions tossed on the floor, possible sign of a struggle.

Nothing else knocked over though, and no sign of Cas. He can’t be gone again he can’t be not right from under Dean’s fucking nose he can’t—

He hears a smashing sound from the direction of the kitchen, throws himself in that direction, through the door and there’s a hooded figure leaning over something on the floor and he knows without doubt that it’s Cas’s unconscious body and they were wrong Cahor wasn’t working alone and his friends have come and they can’t take Cas, they can’t, Dean will fucking die before he lets them he’ll—

Cas stands up, eyes widening in alarm. There’s a dustpan in one hand, brush in the other.

Dean lowers the gun, and lets out a heavy, painful sigh. He bites back the urge to shout, _you scared me to death, you goddamn bastard._ He can see the chain of events spiralling out from an unnecessarily brusque comment like that. Cas’s angry reply, the escalations and back and forth until Dean makes a wrong move and does or says something that snags at Cas’s barely repressed terror and hurt and sends him spiralling.

He can see Cas tensing up, clearly reading Dean’s urge to snap in his body language, readying himself to lash right back.

Dean forces himself to relax, shoulders down, drops the gun and laughs weakly.

“I’d apologise for being paranoid, but, well – s’kinda in the job description.”

Cas relaxes somewhat, a relieved little sigh as he bats back. “You’re not paranoid if someone’s really after you.”

“Something like that.” Dean agrees. “What happened here anyway? Poltergeist? Haunted mugs? Greek werewolf taken against our crockery?”

“Oh you know, sometimes you can’t sleep because you’re lying awake unable to stop thinking about how much you _hate_ a certain mug, so the only thing to do is get up in the middle of the night and smash it.”

“Well, gee.” Dean whistles, it’s amazing how quickly pretending you’re in a jovial mood can actually flip you into something approaching one. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about my mugs.”

He gets what Cas is trying to say but doesn’t want to admit out loud. He’s been there, sleepless hours, the false hope that getting up and having a drink – usually booze with Dean – would reset his brain and let him drop off.

“Did you burn your hands?” Dean checks as a little swoop of worry informs him Cas was probably making a hot drink. He dismisses it – Cas has survived far worse things than some mild scalding.

“I hadn’t actually managed to put anything in the mug yet.” Cas says, rolling his eyes at his own ineptitude.

“Small mercies. You want a hand cleaning it up?”

Cas looks Dean up and down with a grin. “No, thanks. Splinters of crockery and bare feet don’t go well together, from what I’ve heard. Besides, I think you ought to put some clothes on before you scar Charlie for life.”

“I thought someone was dying!” He defends himself, as Cas very clearly perves on his naked form. “I’m used to jumping out of bed fully clothed, sue me.”

“You could at least have thrown on your dressing gown.”

“Yeah, and in the time it took to do up the belt maybe someone would’ve got shot.”

Cas tilts his head and looks at Dean with a soft smile. “I’ll be back to bed in five minutes, once I’ve cleaned this up.”

Dean shakes his head – actually, I’ve got a better plan. Put your coat on and meet me outside.”

“Will you be wearing clothes?”

“It’s a free bunker.” Dean turns and saunters away.

Cas watches him go, feeling a warm flash of lust. Nothing particularly unusual there – withdrawal gut punched him with a dirty bomb of all the sexual urges that the heroin had repressed. It’s that it’s not in the abstract, but comes with a furious and specific desire to run his hands over Deans body, to initiate prolonged and intimate contact with him. Even as recently as yesterday just the idea of that, someone else’s hands on him, no matter whose they were, was enough to fill him with dread.

Huh. It feels like progress, and it comes with a tangled mess of hope and dread.

He trusts it, but he doesn’t feel like he should.

*

Dean saunters back into the kitchen shorty after, wearing an old, frayed pair of jeans and as far as Cas can tell at least four layers of flannels and shirts. He’s got Cas’s hat and scarf in one hand, and a duffel that sounds suspiciously like it’s full of guns in the other.

“Are you taking me outside to put me out of my misery?” Cas asks, taking the winter wear from Dean and putting it on without arguing. He’s learned.

Dean frowns a little at the comment but reigns himself in from making a big deal out of what was clearly a joke.

“That was the plan, but now you’re on guard so I’m gonna have to reassess.”

“Good. I have too much to live for.”

“Can’t die before you see the next series of Game of Thrones. I get ya.”

“I was thinking of something a little closer to home, actually.” Cas says, just to make Dean flush with affectionate embarrassment. He craves compliments and validation but has no idea what to with them, and Cas loves him, oh he does.

He follows Dean out of the front door of the bunker, wondering where they’re going. Dawn has broken hazily, light enough to see by but with night still laying tenuous claim to the forest floor a little past the tree-line. Dean doesn’t venture that far in, though, lays the bag carefully down by the forest edge and draws out some big, white sheets of A2.

“Ain’t got any proper targets, but these should do, I reckon.” He says, as he starts to affix them to the trees.

“I already know how to shoot.” Cas frowns. He can shoot, but he’s not sure he wants to at the moment. He used to be an okay shot, now he has no idea. He wouldn’t want to be forced to try on a hunt — could hit the target, could get let down by his unreliable hands and end up shooting an innocent bystander.

“This isn’t training you jackass, it’s for fun. Still get to destroy stuff but I don’t have to replace all the crockery.”

“I’ve never thought of weapons as fun.” Cas muses.

Dean finishes affixing his targets and jogs back over, refraining from rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, okay Mr Warrior of God, respect your weapon blah blah. I know you were zapped into existence with a knife in one hand, a stick up your ass and no appreciation for fun—”

“Is this personal abuse necessary?”

“It’s not _personal_ abuse, it’s against your species or whatever.”

“Xenophobia?”

“If you say so. But anyway, where I come from, guns are both cool, and fun.”

“And the leading cause of homicide.” Cas says with a sly look, probing Dean to see if he’ll rise. He’s never more than a few inches away from a weapon, but he’s never volunteered an opinion on the issue of civilian gun ownership – even when Charlie is spitting fumes at the TV. Cas is curious.

Dean smirks. “You wanna see whether I’m a card carrying member of the NRA, huh?”

“Just curious as to where you stand.”

“Way I see it,” Dean says, lifting two pistols out of the bag and beckoning to Cas to come and stand with him about 20 yards away from the targets, “It’s too late to have this debate. I dunno exactly how many guns there are in this country, but it’s too many for anyone to have a hope of scooping them all up. Too many people are too invested in it. You could pass a law tomorrow and a handful of people would give up their weapons, sure, but the rest’ll just ignore it, break it on purpose. You can’t arrest ‘em all.”

“You’re not answering the question.” Cas points out, as Dean loads one of the pistols and hands it to him.

“Ain’t I?”

“I didn’t ask whether you think it’d work or not. I asked whether you think it’s right or wrong.”

“No,” Dean points out pedantically, “you asked me where I stand.”

“Well, I’m asking now.”

Dean grunts, busies himself loading his own gun. “I think people got a right to defend themselves, and I think kids got a right to not get shot in their schools. I dunno man, that’s not my battle and I don’t have the fucking answer. I’m just tryna keep civilians safe from demons, if they need keeping safe from themselves, well that’s above my fucking pay grade.”

“So you don’t know what you think?” Cas probes.

Dean shrugs, clearly uncomfortable at being pressed, and finally Cas takes pity on him.

“Admitting that you don’t have an answer takes courage.”

“Well, fuck me, I must be Braveheart of knowing jackshit.” Dean says. “All the opinions I’ve got are the ones leftover from my dad, or battered into me by Charlie. Bouncing between those two fucking poles I’ve never got a clue what’s right or wrong.”

Cas smiles. “It’s a wonder your head hasn’t exploded under the pressure.”

“That’s the power of wilful denial. Now are we doing this, or not?”

“Reasoned debate over, ready to engage in mindless acts of violence at your discretion.” Cas replies.

“That’s what I like to hear. So, what about we play a game.”

Cas’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “What kind of game.”

“A target practice game.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t about training.”

Dean’s actually thought about this pretty carefully, ‘cause Cas has never been shit hot with a gun anyway – well, not compared to Sam or Dean who were practically raised with them. In a straightforward shooting contest he’s not going to come out on top unless he cheats (which lets face it, he’s not above doing, the little shit.) And all of that’s before you throw in added complications like muscle wastage, and oops sometimes my arm spasms and the bullet goes winging off into the distance.

“It’s not. Well, not for you, anyway.”

“So you brought me here to watch you shoot at trees?”

“Some people would pay to see me play with my gun and you get to do it for free.” He says with a wink, to which Cas smiles and rolls his eyes fondly. “But no. You’re gonna shoot wherever you want – on the target, around the target, whatever – and I’ve gotta try and get a hit in touching it.”

“How is that fun for me?”

“Every hit I make, I get two points, every one I miss you get one. Winner gets, um... something?”

“Why do you get more points?”

“Because it’s hard!”

“Hmph. Okay, but if I win I get one favour I can cash in at any time – and you can’t say no.”

“Within reason.” Dean says, a little too quickly, in sudden cold sweats as to what he might get asked.

“Don’t worry.” Cas says acerbically, picking up on Dean’s tone. “If I ask you for heroin you can say no.”

Dean smiles nervously, unsure what to say next. Reprieve comes from Cas, who raises his pistol and fires off a shot. It’s nothing prize winning, but it hits the paper target at least.

Dean follows it rapidly, relying on instinct rather than any true and careful marksmanship. He’s never really been a point and aim guy, hunting doesn’t often give you the time for that.

“Hold your fire, Rambo.” He says to Cas, who’s already lifting his gun to have another go. “I gotta go check who gets the points.”

It’s a miss for Dean, but it’s oh so close, and if Dean were a worse person he would definitely be lying to Cas’s face right now.

“Point to you. Nice shot, man.”

Cas says nothing, just looks smug as he waits for Dean to get out of the firing line. He doesn’t look that way for long, though, as Dean matches shot after shot after shot, wracking up a 7 point lead.

“You’re cheating.” Cas huffs. “Maybe I should check the targets myself.”

“Feel free.” Dean says with a wink, turning his back to the target and doing an over the shoulder no eyes shot. It misses, wildly, but it’s worth it for the _I don’t know whether to murder you or declare my undying love for you_ look on Cas’s face.

Cas claws back the gap as Dean starts to get a bit more cocky and showy. With every shot he lets out a whooping cheer, whether it lands anywhere near Cas’s or not. After two misses in a row he gives Cas a sideways glance.

“Are you hustling me?”

“Maybe.” Cas says. “What’re you going to do about it?”

Dean laughs. “I’m gonna kick your ass, that’s what.”

He talks a big talk, but he doesn’t actually care hugely about winning – I mean, yeah, bragging rights and an open IOU to be used on the most stubborn annoying bastard in the world would be nice, but he’s not gonna be crushed if he loses. And he’s certainly not going to take this as seriously as Cas.

If Dean wants to whoop every time he lets loose a shot, he’s goddamn gonna.

“C’mon.” He encourages. “Yell a little! It’s not fun if you just stand there like a robot.”

He illustrates this by taking his turn and howling at the sky, breaking down in laughter as Cas shakes his head in despair.

“You are utterly ridiculous.” Cas points out, but Dean just sticks his tongue out, fires a volley of shots everywhere except the target.

“I hope there are no ramblers out.” Cas comments drily, waiting for Dean to stop dicking about and go check the target.

“Anyone sneaking about this close to our super-secret bunker at the ass crack of midnight—”

“It’s dawn.”

“Fine, at the asscrack of _dawn,_ probably deserves to get shot.”

“I’ll make sure the court knows that.”

“As long as my trial is fair, dude.” Dean throws over his shoulder as he checks the point. Cas’s, which makes them almost even. Holy shit.

“C’mon,” he yells as he jogs back, “this time with feeling.”

Cas points his gun, gives a halfhearted, “yeah.”

Dean folds his arms.

“I’m not firing another shot until you do it properly.”

“Woo!” The volume increases, but the tone sticks to the same level of enthusiasm.

“Stop pretending you’re too cool to have fun. I’ve seen you nearly wet yourself laughing at Little Big Planet.” Dean admonishes, firing a shot off into the sky with a “WOOOOOOOOOO!”

“Does that count as your shot?”Cas asks.

“The game is suspended until you give me a proper goddamn yell.”

“I feel ridiculous.”

“Tch.” Dean rethinks his plan, hits on inspiration. “Okay, pretend it’s Crowley’s ugly Scottish face on the target. See if that’s easier to yell at.”

Cas decides to play ball, imagines Crowley standing in front of the tree. He can’t quite decide how he wants him, snivelling with fear for his life, or cool and disbelieving so that when he shoots him it’ll be a real fucking shock.

He fires, feels a certain grim satisfaction as he imagines Crowley’s skull caving in.

“I can’t hear you.” Dean singsongs to a tune Cas knows is from Spongebob Squarepants. An odd urge to carry on the song flares and is extinguished as Dean lifts his own gun and yells, “FUCK YOU, CROWLEY!” He sounds so deeply venomous that it makes Cas wonder if there’s something he doesn’t know about, some way in which Crowley’s and Dean’s paths have crossed.

Cas clicks his teeth together, forces his thoughts to move on. He dislikes Crowley, would kill him if he could, but it’s not a true hatred. More of a passing one. Dean wants someone he really hates, someone like—

Suddenly he’s not picturing Crowley. Suddenly it’s Naomi and then Metatron, Dick Roman, Lucifer. And then it settles on _him_. Of course it does. The angel who Cas has more right to hate than any other. Cahor.

Cas screams, an animal noise of rage and hate and fear. He fires wildly at the trees, past the point where the gun starts clicking, empty, howling until his breath leaves him and Dean’s gentle touch is separating his fingers from the weapon.

He blinks back to reality.

“You okay, buddy?” Dean asks, and Cas takes a moment to consider whether he is or not.

“Better.”

Dean nods, scary to watch, but hey. “Y’gotta let that anger out somehow. It’s, um, what’s the word?”

“Cathartic.”

“That’s it, yeah. So, y’feel sufficiently catharted?” He says the made up word with a grin.

“I feel lighter.”

“There you go. All you needed was a bit of a yell.”

“So it seems.”

“Now, if I remember rightly, our score is tied. One last shot to end the game?”

Cas nods, and oh shit, he’s got that look in his eye. Dean knows what he’s going to do a second before he does it.

He lifts his gun and fires directly into the air.

“Sonovabitch.”


	34. Alright, Captain Diet Plan

Sam kicks his heels at the front door for longer than he probably should. This is his home, and he’s cooled off enough not to be a dick about Cas making the wrong choice, and there’s no way, probably, that Dean is still pissed at him.

And yet here he stands, still, at the front door, flicking his keys idly between his fingers.

His phone starts ringing and he fumbles it out of his pocket, checks the number.

Charlie.

“Are you gonna stand out there all day?” She says, in lieu of hello.

Well, that settles that, then. He opens the door, spots Charlie at the war room table.

“Were you sitting there waiting for me?” He asks, meaning somewhere between how and why.

“Since you pulled up into the drive, yeah.”

“Are you psychic now, or have you got me bugged?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She winks. “I beefed up the non-magical security a little bit. Cameras, motion detectors. Wards are great, but maybe one day the person banging on your door won’t be repelled by salt and iron.”

“Paranoid much?” He teases, gets a phenomenal stink-eye in return and raises his hands. “I know, no such thing as paranoia in this life.”

“Damn straight. You wanna see the setup I’ve rigged in the basement. There’s so many failsafes it’s overdoing it even by my standards.”

Sam’s picturing moats and chains and tranquillisers and walls of holy fire. He’s picturing something that would not, realistically, fit in their basement. But there we go.

“Even Dean’s relatively happy with it.”

Sam suppresses a laugh at the ‘relatively’. Because yeah, he can’t see there being a system on this planet that Dean would trust entirely.

“So, what’d you bring me back? Your car looked pretty weighed down.”

“I didn’t bring you back anything, you vulture. It’s all physio stuff for Cas.”

“Tch.” She makes a disparaging noise, but heaves herself to her feet. “I guess if it’s important shit like that I should help you bring it in, then.”

*

“Okay, physio my ass. There’s no way a space hopper is a physio tool.”

Charlie holds up a box with a picture of a giant blue ball on it.

“That’s not space hopper, it’s a gym ball.”

“What the ever-loving fuck is a gym ball?”

“It’s good for your core muscles. Now are you actually here to help or are you just going to stand there questioning my choices?”

“Uh, fine. What happened to fun Sam? Was there a tragic accent where your personality split down the middle and somehow the grumpy, dull one was the one who came out on top?”

“Very funny. Fun Sam is asleep. Cranky Sam is the only thing holding this body upright at the moment.”

“Dude, if you’re that tired just go to bed. I’ll unload all of this for you.”

“Would you mind?”

“No, I said I’d do it just to rescind the offer and crush your dreams, muahahaha etc.”

“Too tired to deal with your weird sense of humour right now.”

“Hmph. Where do you want me to put all this? The gym?”

“Um, yeah. Sure, whatever.”

Sam leaves Charlie attempting to stack an implausible amount of boxes into her arms and makes his way back to the bunker, trying to decide whether he can get away with sneaking past Dean and Cas and just collapsing face-first into bed, or whether he really should at least say hello first.

Luckily, or unluckily, he’s saved from having to make that decision by Dean, who he bumps into en-route from the kitchen to the living room, carrying two steaming plates of burgers and chips.

“Sammy!” Dean grins, fumbling for somewhere to put the plates and eventually just settling for the floor. He pulls Sam into full body hug, slapping him on the back.

“Starting to wonder if you were coming back.” He announces gruffly as they separate.

“Yeah, some of the stuff was harder to track down than I anticipated.”

A blatant lie, but they both pretend it wasn’t and move along.

“Only made three burgers, but there’s chips enough to feed the hordes of hell, if you need something to line your stomach before you catch up on what your eye bags is telling me is about 6 months of sleep.” Dean teases, but there’s a slight note of concern.

It’s unwarranted, really. It’s not that Sam hasn’t been sleeping, it’s that the sudden urge to get home grabbed him by the balls and he drove all night to capitalise on it, worried that if he stopped he’d lose momentum and drift off again.

It made him wonder if that was what it was like for John, on those hunts where he dumped Sam and Dean off on Bobby or Pastor Jim and didn’t come back for weeks, months once even. If he kept trying to come back but found himself bouncing away like his kids were fucking magnetic poles or something.

Jesus, he needs to sleep.

“Earth to Sam?” Dean waves a hand in front of his face, and he twitches back to the room, blurts out the first thing that comes into his dumb head.

“Cas is eating burgers and chips?”

Dean scrunches up his face. “Sorta. I mean he still isn’t eating anywhere near what he should. Just fucking nibbles on everything. If I really bully him I can get him to eat like a third of any meal I make, but he just looks so fucking miserable afterwards, clutching his stomach and all that, that it kinda seems like I’m not helping, y’know.”

“I didn’t mean that,” although it’s a little worrying, “I meant why is he eating junk food?”

“Alright, Captain Diet Plan. You try feeding him a goddamn salad when he looks at you with that Unholy Glare of Doom and tells you he’s craving burgers. See how many fingers you have left at the end of it.”

Sam laughs, a little too giddily if the look Dean gives him is any indication.

“Look, I’ve read the fucking malnutrition advice backwards and forwards, I could probably recite it to you in my goddamn sleep. But you know what won’t help him get better? Healthy shit that he won’t eat. I figure one burger has gotta be better for him than having a bit of a lettuce leaf and half a yoghurt, right?”

Sam nods, he didn’t mean to suggest Dean wasn’t looking out for Cas. He was just surprised.

“And besides,” Dean carries on, as he picks the plates up off the floor. “I handmade these babies and his is more vegetables than meat. Charlie bet me 20 bucks he won’t notice, but she’s wrong. He’s like some sort of freaky vegetable bloodhound, he can always tell where I’ve hidden the healthy stuff.”

“He’s not 5.” Sam points out.

Dean just laughs.

*

Cas is already in the kitchen, dressed in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, when Sam emerges blearily from his 9 hour sleep. He feels like he’s just emerged from a coma.

“Morning.” Cas greets him.

“Hey, buddy. How you doing?”

It’s been two weeks since he last saw Cas, and he doesn’t look much different. Not that Sam was expecting him to suddenly be healthy and spry, but he thought maybe there’d be some change for the better, a little less hollowness around the eyes, bones a little less jerkily pronounced. Sam doesn’t have experience with this sort of thing, doesn’t know how long it takes someone to recover from what Cas had done to him. Doesn’t know whether Cas even heals like a normal person after everything he’s been through, or if that’s all screwy too.

“I’ve been worse.” Cas says, drily. “Thank you for going and collecting all of that equipment. Charlie showed me your haul last night. It looked... expansive.”

“Anything to help, Cas. I mean that.” Cas nods, but Sam doesn’t give him time to do much more than that before he ploughs on. “I was thinking we could start on your physio today, after I’ve eaten and had a shower and stuff. If you’re ready for that?”

“I’d like that.”

“Excellent.” Sam looks at the time. “Meet me in the gym in like, 45 minutes?”

*

“So, Dean tells me you’ve been doing hand exercises already, that’s good.” Sam says as he trots through the door, hair still wet from the shower. For a moment Cas finds that odd, showering before working out, and then he remembers that what classes as a workout for him probably won’t even cause Sam to break out in a sweat.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Cas says, honestly.

“The rubber ball – I know that probably wasn’t its intended purpose, but it’ll be building up the strength and the flexibility in your hands.”

“Lucky me.”

“Yep. So, we’re gonna start things off nice and easy, okay. I want you to lie down on your back—”

“I’d rather not.”

Sam winces, remembering. “Still that sore?”

Cas nods.

“Okay, I was going to run through some passive and assisted exercises just to check what level you’re at, but in that case, I think I’ll start you off at the most basic end of the program and we can work up from there.”

“How basic?”

“So we’re going to start off with a series of isometric exercises. If you sit down on the mat, however’s comfortable, really.”

Cas sits down, suppresses the urge to say that no way is comfortable.

“Great, so we’ll start off with your arms first. All I want you to do is to contract your bicep muscles from a resting position. Keep your arms relaxed and slightly bent, yeah like that, and then just contract the muscle for a few seconds, hold it one, two, three. And relax.”

“This is stupid, I can move my arms fine.”

“Dude, not to be blunt, you’ve lost almost all the muscle on your body, and it doesn’t look like they’re coming back without assistance. Just go with me on this, okay. You need to build up from almost nothing.”

“Fine, but I just want you to know that I think it’s pointless.”

“Your complaint is noted. Can you do a few more for me?”

Cas grumbles, but does as he’s told, surprised to find that he can only manage a handful before his arms start to feel tired.

Sam is kind enough not to say, “I told you so,” instead moving on to different muscle groups and walking Cas through how to stretch them. He can only manage a few at each before he’s exhausted all over and he snorts as he complains to Sam.

“It took you longer to get dressed for this session than it’s actually lasted.”

“It takes time, Cas. You can’t expect your body to just whiplash right back to where it used to be.”

Cas grunts. You don’t need to tell him that there are no easy fixes. He’s achingly, furiously aware.

“And anyway, this session was just to teach you how to do the exercises. You can keep on doing them at intervals throughout the day, whenever you feel recovered enough.”

“Any time?”

“Any time. They’re deliberately low impact, so as long as you’re sensible and pay attention to your body I don’t have to set you a maximum or a minimum amount of times you can do them.”

“Okay.”

“But please, don’t push yourself too hard, okay. The minute you feel too tired, or it starts to hurt, I need you to stop.”

“I thought working out was “no pain, no gain.”” Cas says, doing the air-quotes.

“Not in this case. If you overexert yourself you could put your recovery back weeks. And, not only that, I’d have to explain to Dean why I let you get injured—”

Cas laughs. “I promise not to give Dean any cause to hunt you down and string you from the rafters.”

“If you can’t be concerned for your own safety, be concerned for mine.”

“Deal.”


	35. Stabbing is Bad

“Charlie?” Cas’s voice is quiet, but his tone is around defcon-3. She considers pretending she hasn’t heard him over the ambient noise of the kitchen. Only very briefly, but she does.

She looks up from her gameboy.

“S’up, Cas?”

“Can you please tell Dean that he’s being ridiculous.”

“Always and with pleasure.” She grins. “Dean, you’re ridiculous.”

Dean harrumphs. “You don’t even know what this is about.”

She shrugs. “No offence, handsome, but I’m taking Cas’s side.”

“You’re supposed to be my best friend slash annoying sister I never wanted. I thought that means you take my side.”

“Only in the movies, kiddo. Besides which, I’m more afraid of Cas than I am of you.”

Dean looks across at Cas, sitting on a chair because he’s too tired to stand and wheezing slightly when he breathes, down at the kitchen knife in his own hand, and then disbelievingly back at Charlie.

“You’re kidding me?”

“Thank you Charlie” Cas turns back to Dean. “She’s on my side.” He rumbles. “Now give me the knife.”

“Woah, woah. If there’s stabbing involved here then I take it back.”

“I’m not going to stab Dean.” Cas says, in a tone that suggests that he oh so very much would like to.

“Okay, square one. What are you arguing about, and why does it involve knives.”

“Cooking.” Dean says, at the same time as Cas sneers, “Dean’s being an infantilising ass again.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“I’m looking out for your health, dude!”

“You’re treating me like a child.” Cas hisses, then starts coughing, making it worse by trying to suppress it.

Dean drops the knife and rushes over immediately, but there’s little he can do except fretfully hover until the fit is over. He gets Cas a glass of water, which Cas snatches resentfully.

“Look, I’m not tryna be a prick.” Dean says, while Cas is drinking and can’t interrupt him. “I just, after what happened last time, and your cough is still bad it’s just easier if I cut the goddamn onions.”

“That?” Charlie bursts out. “That is what you were arguing about?”

Dean raises his eyebrows like, yep, the bullshit I have to put up with.

“Jesus, I can fix that for you in like five seconds. C’mere a sec.”

She leads a slightly bewildered and still annoyed Cas to her room. She can see him wondering whether she’s just removing him from the situation to diffuse the argument or whether she actually has a solution.

She closes the door, locks it just to make sure they won’t be interrupted, can see Cas looking increasingly alarmed and flighty.

“Don’t worry, I’m just about to use magic, and you know what Sam and Dean are like. I don’t want them bursting in and getting all weird with it.”

“You’re a witch?”

“No.” She says, pulling a small emerald pendant on a silver chain out from under her shirt. She holds it in her left hand, “Stop me now or forever hold your peace.”

Cas doesn’t stop her, doesn’t even ask her what she’s about to do. He trusts her, which is frankly a goddamn miracle after what he’s been through.

She clicks her fingers, right in front of his face and two green sparks dance from her fingers and sink into Cas’s eyes. He blinks awkwardly.

“Was that supposed to do something?” He asks, after a moment.

She looks carefully into his eyes, spots the tell tale slight shadow.

“I just gave you contacts.”

“Um, thanks?”

“Magic contacts. They’re pretty basic in this world, all they’ll do is stop you crying at onions and correct your vision up to a point if it starts to deteriorate.”

“And in other worlds?” Cas infers where she’s going with this.

“Well, if you ever find yourself in Oz they’re pretty sweet. Once you get the knack you can manipulate them to do whatever you want. I mean, I mostly just used mine for reading in the dark, but Dorothy used to use hers when we were fighting.”

“So this is Oz magic. How are you making it work here?”

She takes off the pendant and hands it over.

“I’m not actually a witch, I just picked up a few tricks when I was over there. Most of them don’t work here, for obvious reasons, but it’s easier in the bunker.”

Cas nods. “I heard about the witch.”

“Yeah, fun stuff.”

“And this necklace?”

“Dorothy gave it to me. It’s, uh, how I got back here in the first place. You can use it to travel between worlds.”

Cas tilts his head inquisitively.

“So you used the necklace to open a fragmentary rift between here and Oz, and used the power that slipped through before you closed it to give me “magical contacts”.”

“Um. I don’t know, really. I just held the necklace and clicked my fingers, like Dorothy showed me.”

Cas hums thoughtfully. “Fair enough.” He hands it back. “I assume from the locked door and the secrecy you don’t want me to tell Sam and Dean about this?”

“I mean, you can tell them about the necklace, maybe don’t tell them that I used it to cast a spell on you.”

Cas snorts. “I’m sure Dean would react in a calm and rational manner if he found out you cast a spell on me from another dimension using a necklace without understanding how or why it works.”

“Well, jeez. When you say it like that I sound _really_ irresponsible.”

“You treated me like an adult.”

“Dean doesn’t mean to—”

“I know.”

“Yeah, of course you do, but it’s still goddamn annoying, right?”

“Exactly.”

“He won’t be satisfied until he’s mother henned us all to death.”

Cas smiles. “Sometimes I wonder if he’d be happier if he had us all locked up in a house somewhere with no doors. Able to wander around, but not escape and get into danger.”

“There’s only so long anyone could stand to be in a windowless house with Sam’s farts. We’d be out or suffocated within two days.”

“Saved by Sam’s impenetrable and disgusting digestive system. I never thought I’d see the day.”

Charlie laughs. “C’mon. We better get back to the kitchen before Dean chops everything in there in a fit of pique.

*

Dean stands up and wipes his hands on his jeans, leaving muddy streaks on the denim. He hates having dirty hands, doesn’t even like it much when they’re wet, never mind coated in half the muck in the goddamn garden. Really he’s in the wrong line of work to be fastidious about that kind of thing – hunting is pretty much wall to wall blood and bodily oozes – and for the most part he just takes it, but the older he gets, the less he likes it.

He turns around to where Cas is sat, basking in the mild warmth but still wearing a coat. Dean shrugged his off a few hours ago, physical exercise plus he doesn’t feel the cold as much as Cas does now.

“Guess what?” Dean asks, spearing his shovel down into the dirt. It promptly falls over and he rolls his eyes at it, gives it a mild kick.

“You’ve finished beating up the ground and now you’ve moved onto your tools?” Cas suggests.

“Very funny.”

“Thank you.”

Dean snorts. “I’ve finished your garden, asshat.”

Cas looks around, raises an eyebrow. “Doesn’t look much like a garden to me. Looks like a lot of mud being held in by a wall.”

Dean flips him the bird, is rewarded with an overly sweet, innocent smile.

“You know when you do that I instantly get suspicious.”

“Yes.”

“Fair enough.” Dean says, tensed to dodge out of the way if Cas decides to start throwing mud at him. “So, green fingers. What now?”

“Now we go get the plants.”

“Sure thing. You got a list, or you up for an adventure?”

“You’re letting me out of the bunker?” Cas sounds surprised.

“Don’t say it like I had you chained to the bed.” Dean says, winces at his own careless words and quickly tries to fill the space with something else. “I figured all four of us could go, you and your armed escort. We could all do with a little time out in the big wide world. I can feel the cabin fever settling in – I nearly took Charlie’s head off for leaving a mug on the table, and I’ve actually had chances to leave this place, going to the shops and crap. You must be about ready to explode.”

He was, but the garden helps. Being outside is something he hadn’t realised he missed until he got the chance to experience it again. The boredom is still there, though, rattling at his resolve and reminding him that bliss is the quickest way to kill any monotony.

“When are we going?” Cas asks, instead of answering. Doesn’t want Dean to think of the boredom as a personal failure, as opposed to just a function of Cas’s life now.

Dean checks the time on his phone. “It’s early, place is still open for hours and I doubt it’ll be busy. I’m thinking shower and round up the other two and then head out.”

“Great.” Cas says, stomach fizzing with a ridiculous amount of excitement for something so mundane.

*

The garden centre is busy, noisy and full of places for someone to hide. Dean can’t help noticing these things, his hunter senses whirring along overtime. Usually he can shut them off, stuff ‘em in a bag and only let them out to breathe when he needs them. But, yeah. Ever since Cas his paranoia has been a little high alert. He’s sure it’ll settle down once Cas is back to being Cas, but this twitchy-eyed, slow reflex version is hardly gonna be able to defend itself so paranoia, meet Dean.

There’s some sort of sale on, although why that would attract a million billion people to a garden centre on an ordinary fucking afternoon is beyond Dean.

He’s so busy watching out for any danger that might be about to spring Cas’s way, that he completely forgets to keep an eye on Cas’s mental wellbeing. It’s Charlie who spots that he’s got his little fidget ball squeezed so hard that his knuckles have gone white, taps Dean on the shoulder and tilts her head subtly.

Dean clocks on immediately, swears and gestures to Sam to take point. Sam does, but with an air of reluctance – stop feeding his paranoia or you’ll make this worse written all over his face.

*

Cas feels fine the entire drive to the garden centre – it’s a little way away but picked specifically because it sells some weird and arcane shit. Perfect for a hunter’s functional herb garden. Not that Cas is planning for the whole garden to be like that. A mixture of function and form.

That said, he has no idea how green his fingers actually are, so perhaps it’ll be closer to a mixture of dead stalks and weeds, but that’s something he’s only going to find out through trying. Might as well try ambitious at first and scale back if it turns out he’s overreached.

He’s watched humanity grow and cultivate for thousands and thousands of years. How hard can it be?

He follows Sam into the centre, flanked by Charlie and with Dean behind him. They have him surrounded, just in case. And it doesn’t annoy him as much as he thought it would. He actually felt something approaching relief when he realised. A settling of the nervous excitement in his stomach.

There are a lot of people around, he notes. Lots of people making lots of noise. He can’t pick out one conversation over the other, has no idea what they’re saying. What might they be saying? There’s a little girl staring at him, darts her gaze quickly away when she realises she’s been clocked. She’s not the only one. There are people all around glancing furtively at him. His stomach tightens, and he realises what he took for nervous excitement is now churning up into fear.

Why are they looking at him? Can they see something everyone else can’t? There’s enough of them for this to be an ambush, a trap. Half a dozen angels or demons or something else that can see into the warped and twisted mess inside him. Who know what he did and are out for revenge. Of course Cahor wasn’t the only one, he was so goddamn stupid.

They’re boxing him in, surrounding him, and they’re going to take him, they’re going to take him and they’ll kill Sam and Dean and Charlie to get him. Will kill all the innocent people in this place and he never should have left. He was safe in the bunker he was safe—

“Cas?” Dean’s voice, soft, concerned, breaks through his mounting panic.

“Watch out.” Cas whispers.

“Watch out for what, buddy?”

“I can see them staring. They’re circling us. They’ve found me,”

“Who’s found you, buddy?”

“Angels. There are angels here. He sent them.”

Dean clocks on immediately, looks around, frowns.

“I can’t see any angels.”

“How can you tell?”

Dean shrugs. “Okay. What about if I use a banishing sigil. Will that make you feel better?”

“They’ll come back.”

“Cas, buddy. There isn’t any _they._ Me and Charlie and Hannah, we dealt with all of Ca – all of his allies. I promise you, there aren’t any more.”

Cas still looks tense, squeezing the little fidget ball so hard his knuckles stand out.

“Do you trust me, buddy?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, well can you trust me when I say you’re safe here.” Sam was fucking right, all Dean’s Threatcon Delta posturing did was feed Cas’s paranoia and now he’s verging on panic just because he’s somewhere a little busy.

“Why are they looking at me?”

Dean sighs. “Buddy, you’re still recovering. We’re used to it, but, it looks a bit unusual to other people. That’s why they’re staring.”

There’s a different pit in Cas’s stomach now. He remembers his physical weakness, he forgets his physical appearance. Shame curls around his bones, but the nervousness is still there, coiled and waiting to stoke itself into panic again.

“There’s too many people.” He manages.

“We can go sit in the car? Just the two of us? I’ve got your list, I can give it to Charlie.”

“I,” Cas nods. “I think that’s for the best.” His voice cracks, and he reaches for Dean’s hands, lets Dean lead him away, murmuring apologies under his breath.

Dean’s heart is pounding. This is his fault, he shouldn’t have suggested it, it was too much. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for, buddy. Nothing at all.”


	36. Like a Puppy

Sam holds his tongue until Cas falls asleep, lying on his side on the sofa-bed, breathing evenly, if with a harsh rasp.

He doesn’t bother tiptoeing around it, goes for the blunt, “What happened?”

Dean sighs through his nose, gets up from where he’s sitting next to Cas and settles down by Sam instead, doesn’t want to disturb Cas by talking. “He got spooked, thought all the guys staring at him were angels.”

“Shit.” Sam scrubs a hand through his hair. “Is that going to happen every time he leaves the bunker?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Dean snaps, eases back. “It’s my fault, I shoulda known he’d be sketchy around people. Should never have suggested it.”

“How?” Charlie asks, trying to head off the spiral of blame before it starts. “He was fine when we went out before, to the thrift store.”

Well, he was fine until the incident with the business card, but that’s another matter entirely.

“I know, but.”

“But nothing.” She shrugs, and Sam dives in to steer the conversation back on track.

“You’re right, he didn’t freak out before. So what’s changed?”

“The amount of people?” Charlie suggests. “The last time he was somewhere crowded and loud like that was before all this. Maybe he just needs to work his way back up.”

“What, like socialising a puppy.” Dean sneers.

“What do you know about socialising puppies?” Sam asks, at the same time as Charlie says,

“Same principle. He’s bound to be wary around people he doesn’t trust.”

There’s a pause. “Ben wanted a puppy.” Dean says, in a flat tone that says ask me about this and I’ll rearrange your face. “One of his friends fostered service dog puppies.”

Charlie sits bolt upright, like a cartoon character that’s had an idea.

“Hey, there’s a thought. What about getting Cas a service dog. You can get them for all kinds of stuff, it’s not just guide dogs. They’re supposed to be really good for PTSD.”

“Not to burst your bubble, Charlie.” Sam says, in a weird tone, “but he can’t legally get one – he doesn’t even exist and it’s not like we can take him to a doctor and get him assessed without raising serious questions about what happened to him. And stealing a service dog is dicey, even by our standards.”

“You can buy anything—”

“I don’t like dogs.” Dean says, quietly.

“So what, if it’ll help Cas I’m sure you can learn to live with one.” Charlie says, with a shrug. “I don’t like you but somehow I’ve learned that you’re the price I have to pay for Cas’s company.”

She expects him to rise to the gibe, but he doesn’t say anything. That’s... weird.

Sam catches her eye, shakes his head ever so slightly and mouths a word. It takes a few tries before she gets it.

Hellhounds.

Oh, oh shit.

She reassesses Dean’s posture, hunched, eyes darting. His left hand is white knuckling the sofa. Jesus, even just talking about it is skeeving him out.

“Although, actually, you’re probably right, Sam. We’d just be taking one away from someone who needs it, and an untrained dog would probably do more harm than good. I mean, I don’t know how to look after a dog. What if it bites someone.” She waffles, sees the tension bleed out of Dean’s shoulders a little with every back-peddling word.

And maybe she’s reading a bit too much into it here, but it looks like he was going to accept it if they pushed hard enough, just roll over and let them get Cas a dog that would remind him every goddamn day of being dragged to hell. Sometimes she hates him for this, for his inability to ever put himself first.

But now isn’t the time.

“No dog, then. But that’s a good line of thought, there must be other things out there that could help.” Sam says.

“Medical weed?” Charlie suggests.

“No.” Dean’s tone is absolute.

“Since when have you been anti-drugs.” Sam snorts. “I’m pretty sure you’ve done,” he was about to say more than the four of us combined, but he realises in time what poor taste that would be in. Probably untrue now, as well, “your fair share.”

“This is different.”

“Yeah, it’d actually be good for him. It can help with anxiety and it’s prescribed for chronic pain.” Charlie points out.

“It wouldn’t be good for him. Just fucking trust me. Don’t you dare even mention it to him I swear to god.” He snarls the last word, fists clenched like he’s barely restraining himself from getting violent.

Charlie and Sam exchange a look. Dean barely had a word to say about the dog, but this is the hill he’s choosing to die on. There’s something they’re missing.

“Weed and heroin are completely different, Dean.” Sam says in the kind of soothing tone that works on kids but makes adults want to punch him. “Weed isn’t going to slingshot him straight back to heroin.”

“I know that!” Dean spits.

“Then what’s the big deal?” Charlie asks.

“We always end up here.” Dean mutters, laughing breathlessly.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam says.

“I’VE SEEN IT!” He yells, modulates his tone when Cas stirs but doesn’t wake. “I’ve seen Cas out of his mind and fucked up on a cocktail of weed and uppers and painkillers and amphetamines. I’ve seen what’s left of him once he starts down that path and I won’t let you set him on it again. I fucking won’t.”

“Dean, what on earth are you talking about? Cas has never taken any drugs.”

Charlie gets it suddenly, can’t believe she forgot.

“The End. You’re talking about The End.”

“What’s the end?” Sam asks, confused.

Dean shrugs, he’s not familiar with the titles of the books. Hasn’t read most of them, didn’t really feel the need to, what with having suffered through every miserable goddamn inch of them.

“From the books. That was the title of one of them, the one where—”

“Zach zapped me from ‘09 to 2014. Croats and demons and survivalism and fuck all humanity left in anyone left living.” He won’t tell Sam about Lucifer wearing him like a glove, or the version of himself that he met there. So bitter and jaded and callous that he sent all his friends, sent goddamn fucking Cas – or what was left of him – to die. “Saw a lot of shit, met versions of people who should never, ever have been allowed to exist. Trust me, no uppers, no downers, and no _fucking_ weed.”

Sam’s reeling, this is the first he’s heard about it. He patches together a rough timeline, works out it must have been when he and Dean separated, just before – shit is that why Dean called him back?

“Did you—” Sam starts to ask.

“Enough.” Dean growls.

“Okay,” Charlie says. “Okay. So that option’s out, that’s fine. But we still need to do something about Cas, we can’t just let this fester.”

Sam takes the change of subject. Which is good, because Dean already feels backed into a corner and emotionally on edge. Wouldn’t take much for him to start lashing out.

“I wonder how much of it is to do with his physical confidence?” Sam muses. “He knows he can’t defend himself right now, so of course he’d be more on edge.”

“So what, you think we just sit around and wait here until he’s back to normal?” Dean scoffs, but it’s tempting. Yeah they need to get out, yeah the cabin fever might mess them around, but bored out of your brain is better than fucking dead or wigging out.

“No, I don’t think we can risk that.” Charlie says. “He’s just had a pretty big freakout, that’s the kind of thing that only gets worse if you leave it to fester.”

“So we’re back to the socialising idea?” Sam asks.

“I think we gotta. He’s only gonna dwell on this and get more freaked out if we don’t – build it up into some big thing and make it worse.”

“Yeah but how do we start? Go back to somewhere with only a few people and see what happens?” Sam says.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Charlie says. “He calmed down when Dean took him to the car, right? So that must mean he feels safer in there than out in the open.”

“So what, we just go for a drive?”

“No, we go to a drive-thru movie, or if there’s too many people there maybe something else you can do from a car – a safari maybe?”

“Huh.” Sam doesn’t dismiss it offhand. It sounds kinda nuts, but the kinda nuts that might work.

“Dean?” Charlie tries to get his attention, suddenly aware that she’s only been having the latter half of this conversation with one Winchester brother. Dean’s staring vacantly at Cas, looks like he’s on another planet entirely. “Dean, what do you think?” She waves a hand in front of his face, and he snaps back.

“I dunno man,” Dean admits “I’m not used to, I don’t fucking know how to deal with this.” Dean pauses, and Sam realises he looks tired. Much tireder than he has in recent weeks. It makes him wonder how much of what he’s been seeing of Dean recently is real and how much is just facade, holding it together for Cas’s sake. “He’s always been the biggest, baddest thing in the room, and even if he wasn’t, he goddamn thought he was. He’d stride in without giving a single solitary fuck for his own safety, kill or outsmart whatever stood in his way. And now? Now he flips out when a handful of people look at him funny.”

It freaked Dean out, seeing that. More than he’s felt able to say, to show. Sure, Cas is weaker and jumpier than he used to be, but he was still Cas. Still tough as shit and unfazed by most anything. Except he’s not, is he. He’s fragile on the fucking inside as well as the outside and maybe it goes a lot deeper than Dean thought. Maybe the progress he thought they’d been making was just goddamn cosmetics.

“He’ll get better.” Charlie says, sounding more confident than she feels.

“I know, just. I miss him, which is fucking stupid ‘cause he’s right here.”

“I don’t think you miss him.” Charlie says. “I think you miss things being easy with him.”

“Things have never been easy.” Dean says, “But that was okay. It’s been worth it. I just, I just want things to get back to fucking normal already—”

Dean notices Cas stir minutely on the sofa, gestures to the door to indicate that they should carry on this conversation away from sleeping beauty.

The other two follow him to the kitchen.

“I don’t even mean normal like he was before all this crap.” Dean carries on. “I just wanna be able to touch him without worrying I’m gonna freak him out or send him spiralling.”

“He’ll get there.” Charlie reassures, I promise.”

God, Dean wants a drink like nothing else in the world right now – fingers itching for a whiskey bottle. He compromises with himself, gets a beer out of the fridge. A real beer, this time. He ignores Sam’s knowing look. Yeah, yeah, he said he wouldn’t do this, freaked out the last time he did. But he needs something, just a little brush of reassurance. And if he doesn’t reach for a beer, it’s going to be whiskey. Kill the big devil with a little one.

*

“How’s Cas been doing, I mean, aside from today?” Sam asks. If anyone would have an insight into his mental state, it’s Dean. It’s always Dean.

Dean picks at the label of his beer, trying to gather his thoughts. Sam and Charlie wait him out, know that prying won’t do any good.

“Before today I’d have said he was doing okay. Not great, or anything, but making progress. Less jumpy, getting there with physical contact and crap.”

“Like he’s feeling safer?”

“Yeah, maybe. But as for what else is going on in his head, search me. I ain’t got a goddamn clue what he’s been through, what’s it’s done to him on the inside, apart from the surface stuff.”

“He’s not talked to you about it?” Sam’s surprised, but maybe he shouldn’t be.

“Not a word.” Dean takes a long, slow pull of his beer. “And I get not wanting to rake over it, I do. But it’s like this big fucking wall between us and it makes me nervous. ‘Cause I never know whether I’m gonna say or do something that’ll remind him of what happened.”

“He just needs time.”

Dean shrugs. “I know, I’ve just got this fucking fear in the pit of my stomach, eating away at me day and night, that I’m gonna say or do something that’ll really, properly hurt him.”

“We’re all worried about hurting him, Dean.” Sam says. “we’re all gonna make mistakes – all _have_ made mistakes. But we can’t help it, and the only way to shield him from that is to cut all ties entirely. That’s gonna do him way more harm than any carelessness on our part.”

Dean snorts. “I know that, my goddamn head knows that.”

“But try telling that to your idiot lizard brain, huh?” Charlie says.

“’zactly. Prob’ly wouldn’t stop even if I did know what happened.”

“You’d just have something specific to worry about, instead of a formless void of fear.”

That almost gets a laugh out of Dean.

“It’s just, man. I know not talking about stuff is like my fucking m/o, but I think he’s bottling shit up and I know exactly how goddamn unhealthy that is because it’s exactly what I do. Stuff it down until it explodes out in booze and violence.”

Charlie makes a weird snorting noise, and it takes Dean a moment to realise she’s suppressing a giggle.

“What?” He snaps.

“I-I’m sorry.” She laughs. “It’s just, are you growing as a person?”

“I’m trying to have a serious goddamn conversation here!”

“Yeah, about your _feelings._ ” She’s practically crying now, and it sets Sam off too. Dean holds out for one, two, three long seconds, trying so hard to be pissed off, but then he’s laughing too.

He’s not sure why, even. Whether it’s what Charlie said – the base fucking hypocrisy of him ragging someone out for trying to avoid talking about stuff, whether he’s just getting infected by their laughter, or whether it’s hysteria springing from the emotional turmoil he’s been dealing with.

Maybe all three.

He actually feels a bit better when he calms down, like the hysterics helped. And it must have been the laughter, nothing at all to do with the fact that he was finally being a bit more open about his fears, unburdening himself on two of the three people he trusts implicitly.

Charlie reaches up, wraps him in a hug that would be bone crushing if it was from someone with a little more muscle.

“Just give him time, Dean.” She says. “That’s all he needs from you.”

*

Cas lies awake for a long time after they leave the room, thinking about what he groggily overheard.

He thinks about how he wishes things were back to normal too. How he wishes he could snap forward to some point in the future where he is healthy and happy and whole, and otherwise as unscarred by this experience as Dean seems to think he’s going to be.

He’s noticed it a few times, now. When you’re better, when you’re recovered. When everything is fine.

So many when’s, so few if’s.

Cas thinks entirely in if’s, when he thinks at all. He doesn’t like thinking about the future. He’s too busy focusing on the present. On the minute by minute struggle.

Which brings him to the other thing he’s thinking about

Dean’s use of the past tense.

It _was_ okay, it _has_ been worth it.

He tries to dismiss it as careless semantics. It means nothing, and it certainly doesn’t mean what the nagging little voice in the back of his head is trying to tell him. That paranoid itch that he can’t quite scratch, which slopes into view whenever he lets his guard down. He’s getting very good at dismissing it whenever it oozes, tar-like into his thoughts, poking away at his memories and trying to get him to reframe them, see them in a light he knows, he knows deep in his goddamn bones isn’t true.

The problem with tar, though, is that although you can wash it away, it always seems to leave a faint residue over everything it touches.

It’d make sense for Dean to regret staying, it’d make sense for him to think that what used to be difficult but worth it, is still difficult but no longer worth it. That the future he’s clinging to, the thing that gets him through the day, where it’s him and Cas and everything is easier again, is receding further and further away with every day. Is an illusion, a dead fucking memory.

Cas just has to have faith that this isn’t the case. Has to have faith in Dean.

He can do that.

That’s the one thing he can do without any problem at all.


	37. What Does My Wellbeing Committee Advise?

Dean drinks his one beer and then removes himself from the kitchen. If he stays he’ll be tempted to have another, so best to remove himself from the room entirely. One beer to level him out isn’t falling off the _don’t drink to deal with your bullshit_ wagon. One beer is like looking over the edge and getting a little wobble of vertigo. Two beers, that’d be overbalancing. Three would be tumbling out the cart and landing flat on his ass on he road below.

And breaking out the whiskey would be lying prone on that same road while the wheels of oncoming cars thundered over him and crushed his bones to paste.

He’s thought about this, after his little meltdown over the fake beer. About the different levels of failure he’s going to allow himself without too much in the way of castigation. He’s a fuckup, he knows it, so he’s gotta have some leeway. Can’t take the first slip as an excuse to dive face-first into even worse because fuck it, we’ve already failed now, what’s the point in carrying on.

There’s a little voice in the back of his head sniping about slippery slopes. He hates the little fucking voice.

He roams around for a bit, trying to walk off the jittery energy building in his bones, eventually finds himself back in the living room where he finds Cas, lying on his side with his eyes closed and the crossest expression a supposedly sleeping man has ever worn.

“Trying to glare a hole through your own eyelids?” Dean asks, sitting down on the bed.

“Trying to get back to sleep.” Cas says, without opening his eyes.

“I’m sure this isn’t all that helpful, but you look about five minutes from being able to shoot lasers out of your eyes and that level of irritation ain’t exactly conducive to sleeping.”

Dean reaches out a hand, wants to run his fingers over the frown lines on Cas’s brow, smooth them away. He resists, though. Touch is still a minefield, and Cas clearly isn’t in the best of moods.

Cas sits up with a wince that makes Dean wonder if he sprained something in his sleep. Maybe this sofa-bed thing isn’t good for him. It looks solid enough, but it’s not a real mattress. Might not be doing him any favours.

“I know being annoyed isn’t helping, but the more I think about how I need to be calm and asleep, the more annoyed I get.”

“It’s a vicious cycle.”

“Hmph.”

“Something on your mind?” Dean fishes in as undemanding a way as he can think of.

Cas pauses for a long moment, long enough that Dean starts to think, hey, maybe he’s gonna spill something. And then Cas sighs, says, “Nothing more than usual.”

An answer that might be satisfying if Dean had more than the most basic understanding of what ‘usual’ was.

He tries again. “That doesn’t te...” He trails off, though before he can finish. There’s something about the expression on Cas’s face. He looks like the last thing he needs is to rake this over – eyes unfocussed and right hand twitching lightly against the bed.

Cas will tell him when he’s ready, Dean knows that, has literally just had Sam and Charlie reconfirm that for him. Throwing out the sort of loaded statement he’d just got halfway through isn’t gonna help matters. It’d just come off pushy, force Cas to either get defensive or talk before he’s able. Dean doesn’t want to do that. Dean’s job right now is to get Cas out of his head, not push him back into it.

“Well you’re up now, no point in trying to get back to sleep.” He says, and if Cas notices the aborted sentence start and abrupt change, he’s polite enough not to mention it. “How about we go a few rounds of Mariokart or something?”

Cas fixes Dean with a highly suspicious look.

“You hate Mariokart. You always lose.”

“I don’t lose to Sam.” Dean defends his wounded pride.

Cas makes a “well duh” noise. Nobody loses to Sam. Kid might as well be going round the track backwards.

“You always lose to _me._ ” Cas says.

“Yeah well, you’re sleep deprived and half awake. I’m hoping that’ll stand in my favour.”

Cas makes an amused noise, and Dean braces himself to get his ass well and truly kicked.

*

Dean “lets” Cas kick his ass until his mood improves and then, without looking up from the game – ‘cause he’s a dirty coward and it’s easier to say these things to a brightly coloured screen than it is to someone’s face – he brings up the conversation he had while Cas was asleep.

“I talked to Sam and Charlie, while you were out for the count.”

“What a surprise.” Cas says, in a dry tone that makes Dean brace himself to get yelled at. But then Cas changes tack suddenly. “I didn’t mean to concern any of you. I – I overreacted.”

Dean shrugs. “S’understandable.”

“It won’t happen again, I promise.”

Dean pauses the game, because it’s time to be a grownup, turns to face Cas.

“Can you promise that?”

Cas doesn’t look at him, focused on the wii remote in his hand, like someone’s written down what to say on it and all he has to do is keep turning it over until he finds the magic word that ends this conversation.

“I’ll keep better control of myself. It was a lapse.”

And that’s exactly what Dean doesn’t want to hear. He wants less fucking self control from Cas, not more. He wants Cas to feel able to tell him what was going on, to feel able to tell him every time he’s being unhelpful.

“Cas, buddy.” Dean reaches out his hand, stops a little short of Cas’s in the hope that Cas’ll make the final move. He doesn’t, instead he leans back ever so slightly. Dean ignores the mild pang of rejection, bigger battles to fight and all. “Your self control isn’t the problem here. If you’re that scared the last thing I want you to do is stand there and suffer in silence.”

“Well that’s my life now.” Cas snaps, “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Dean winces. “Look, I can’t help you with everything, I know that, but you gotta let me do the stuff I can. And if that means whisking you out of a situation that makes you feel like you did earlier, then fuck me, you gotta let me help.”

“What if I don’t—” Cas says, course corrects abruptly. “I thought I knew my limits, that being out in the open would be okay, but then I got there and I couldn’t stand it. I could see them everywhere, there wasn’t even a tiny rational part of my brain telling me to shut up. It was all blaring fucking sirens.”

“I’m sorry—” Dean starts, but Cas isn’t done.

“What if that’s what it’s like from now on? What if I can never go out again, trapped in here by my own stupid, baseless fears.”

“Your fears aren’t baseless, Cas.”

Cas laughs. “Thanks for the helpful reminder.”

“That, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that it’s not just some random neurosis you’ve magicked out of thing air. It’s perfectly reasonable to feel scared.”

“But what if I don’t _stop_ being scared.”

Dean sighs, the hand near Cas’s twitching with the urge to comfort him physically. That’s what Dean does best, not the words and the emotional comfort. It’s always a struggle to get the right words out at the right time.

“Look, you’re not stupid, you know we were talking about you while you were out cold.”

Cas snorts, hasn’t decided if he’s going to be angry about that yet, despite its inevitability.

“But you don’t get to get mad at us for talking behind your back, ‘cause I’m gonna lay it all out for you now, what we said.” A slight mistruth, perhaps. Dean’s leaving his own more specific fears by the wayside. “Just, we were worried about you,”

“Just spit it out.” Cas says, “Please.”

“You’ve been hurt, and not just physically, mentally as well, okay. And yeah, we’ve got Sam looking after your muscles and crap, making sure you don’t do too much too soon. But then the mental stuff, I should be on guard for that, but instead it’s like I,” he casts around for an appropriate simile, lands on something he knows will make Cas laugh in that huffily annoyed way of his. “It’s like I pulled you up off the bed and threw you into a boxing ring for a title fight.”

Cas scowls. “You think taking me to a garden centre is the emotional equivalent of pushing me in a ring to get beaten up by a professional?”

“Yeah, I do. That place was big, noisy, full of people and places to hide. That’s like, top tier crap.”

Cas snorts, “Your similes are ridiculous.”

“But you get what I’m trying to say?”

“That I overstretched myself?”

“Exactly!”

“So what did my wellbeing committee decide was the best course of action?”

“We discussed options to bring to you, you stubborn asshole, and thought that since you seemed comfortable in the car, maybe something that involves driving might be a good starting place.”

“Formula One or Nascar?”

“Ha – freaking – ha. Drive in movie or Safari Park were the only things Sam and Charlie could think of.”

“And you?”

“I thought maybe we could just go for a drive, you and me. To somewhere populated or not, depending on how adventurous you’re feeling. We could even find somewhere abandoned and get you back behind the wheel. Sure you’re a proficient driver, but it’s all very boring point a to point b shit. Your handbrake turns and donuts need a little work.”

Dean looks so excited that Cas hesitates to ruin it for him, but he has to.

“I don’t really like being in the car.” He says slowly. “The roads around here are too rough, every jolt and lurch is painful.”

“Ah, shit man.” Dean looks crestfallen but tries to hide it. “I knew you were a little uncomfortable the first time, but I didn’t realise it was still that bad.”

Cas shrugs.

“I guess that means safari is out?”

“Um, maybe not right now.” He doesn’t know where the nearest is, but he doesn’t think it’s close. The thought of having to drive any great distance is making him twitchy already. Plus once they get there they’d sit in a queue of cars, not much scope for making a quick—

“You okay?” Dean asks, “lost you for a moment there.”

He decides for honesty. “I was thinking about how hard it would be to make a quick getaway if we were in a line of cars, in one of the dangerous animal enclosures with an airlock gate.”

Dean’s not been to a safari before, hadn’t considered there’d be spaceship gates to navigate. He’s not sure what he was imagining, really. Jurassic park with fewer electric fences?

“Yeah, okay. If Charlie wants to go on Safari she’s just gonna have to go on her own.”

“A drive-in wouldn’t involve much moving, once we’re there.” Cas says.

“And we could park near the edge, so we can make a quick escape if anything gets fucked up.”

“Do they still have drive-ins anymore?”

“Fucked if I know, but I hear there’s this brand new thing called the internet.”

“Funny.”

“Thanks babe.” Dean winks, is rewarded with a hint of a smile from Cas.

Cas reaches out his hand, brushes his fingers over Deans hand and then withdraws. He can see goosebumps on Dean’s arm and it fills him with a strange kind of nostalgic longing. Back to when he had the confidence in his physical self to be free and easy with touch. Back when he didn’t have to measure it and dole it out carefully lest he use up his supplies and render himself barely able to stand his own clothes.

“You’re being very understanding.” He says, and he can hear the barest hint of confused lilt in his own voice – like he’s asking Dean why. He doesn’t just mean now, though, about this new fear of crowds. He means about the silences, and the moods, and the withdrawal and the inability to behave like he used to, to snap back into being the person he used to be.

Dean shrugs, answers only a fragment of the question. “I’ve got your back, we all do. Whether that means keeping you safe from physical threats or mental ones. We’re your family, of course we’re gonna do what we can to try and make this easier.”

Dean Winchester, Cas thinks with a sad little smile. Always the first to shoulder the blame and share the praise.

“You’re a good man.” He says. “A very good man.”


	38. Stop Complaining and Hold My Hand

“At the driiiiive in...” Charlie croons, loud and out of tune.

“I swear to god,” Dean grumbles, “if you sing that one more time I’m gonna...”

“You’re gonna what?” Charlie asks, all faux sweetness and light.

“I’ll push you out of this moving vehicle.”

“Wow, Dean. That’s a bit of an overreaction.”

“My car my rules.” He huffs.

“No it isn’t.”

“What?”

“I stole this car, doesn’t that make it mine?” Charlie asks, oh so sweetly.

“Squatters rights, I’ve driven it more than you.”

She ignores him. “Does that mean I get to pick the music, ‘cause I have a song in mind…”

“Jesus, how has no-one murdered you yet?”

Charlie gives him a look that says _they’ve fucking tried,_ turns from the front seat and catches Cas’s eye. “Hey, Cas. Control your pet idiot, he’s getting a bit stroppy.”

Cas snorts, managing to get across so much hopeless derision in that one noise that Charlie laughs, goes straight back to singing.

Dean rolls the jeep to a gentle stop, mindful now that he knows Cas finds jolting rides uncomfortable.

“Charlie, Cas.” Dean barks, “swap.”

Charlie pouts. “I called shotgun.”

“She did call it.” Cas points out, reasonably.

“I don’t give a rats ass.” Dean says, “she can sit in the back and annoy Sam.”

“Shotgun is a sacred right.” Charlie insists. “If we can’t hold to the rules of shotgun, how are we any different to the monsters we fight.” She can see a faint smile trying to break through on Dean’s face, knows he’s mostly playing at being annoyed. So she decides to push him further. “Besides, Cas can’t sit in the front. You’d never look at the road.”

“I’m a perfectly safe driver!” Dean blusters, although Charlie notices he doesn’t deny the Cas thing outright.

“Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, but I’m not getting out of this seat.”

Dean meets her eye, and she quirks one eyebrow in challenge.

He starts the car again, muttering about ungrateful bastard little sisters he never even wanted, but you can barely hear him over Charlie’s renewed chorus.

*

It’s not until they pull into the drive-in that Cas realises maybe he should be feeling nervous. He figures he was too busy concentrating on being rattled and jolted by the journey to feel anything really approaching fear then, but now they’re moving so slowly he’s got nothing much else to focus on. As they pull into a spot at the end of the row, a bored looking steward comes over to ask them to move along.

Cas waits for the gnawing fear as Dean winds down the window, explains that they might have to make a quick escape, slips the kid a $20 note with a wink. The kid pockets the cash and says, “you know we, uh, have a policy for that right. You just need to call the number and let us know your registration. Thanks, though. ‘preciate the tip.” He strolls away, grinning broadly, and Dean rolls the window back up with a fond roll of his eyes – perhaps recognising something of himself in the kid.

And throughout the whole exchange, Cas still feels fine. He doesn’t think that bored kid is an angel in disguise, he doesn’t even worry as more and more cars pull up alongside them, as people get out of their vehicles and stretch and go for snacks.

Not even the faintest glimmer of apprehension.

He spots a refreshment stand, mostly empty ‘cause it’s the only one not selling booze.

“Can we get popcorn?” Cas asks.

“Yeah, sure.” Dean says. “Sweet or salted?”

“I haven’t decided, I’ll choose at the counter.”

He sees Dean’s surprised double take, and the effort he puts into right after to control it. This isn’t a big deal, it’s perfectly normal behaviour. Don’t make it into a big deal.

“Sure thing.” He says, and Cas can tell that he wants to ask if he’s sure, but is biting it down. He figures there was a pep-talk from Charlie before hand – I know you’ll want to smother him and mother hen him but the best thing to do is just be normal, treat this like there’s nothing wrong.

Dean gets out of the car and opens the rear passenger door for Cas, which earns him a whistle from Charlie, which turns into a shouted, “Oi, don’t we get popcorn”. Cas ignores her, reaches for Dean’s hand and uses it to pull himself out of the car, doesn’t let go.

The physical discomfort is only slight, and it’s worth it for the faint blush on the tips of Dean’s ears and the sweetly nervous smile on his face.

A slight tinge of nervousness twinges in Cas’s chest as they approach the counter, but it’s nothing really, easily dismissed, especially compared to the panic of before. People are looking at him here, sure, but it doesn’t set him on edge. He notices it, and then thinks little more of it. Dean was right, before. He does look odd, of course people are going to double take.

“Sweet or salted?” Dean asks as they join the short line.

Cas doesn’t even think about it.

“Both.”

Dean snorts. “Okay, one of each it is.” Anything Cas is prepared to eat, he’s not gonna say no. Even if popcorn probably has fuck all nutritional value, at least it’s something in his stomach.

Dean pays, takes his change and watches as Cas accepts two steaming boxes of popcorn without so much as flinching, carrying them back to the car. You wouldn’t know only yesterday it’d been panic and angels everywhere.

Maybe, just maybe it was a one time thing. A bad day or an off moment. Maybe this isn’t anywhere near as big a deal as they all made it out to be.

“How you doing, Cas?” Charlie asks from Cas’s seat as he opens the back door, a little surprised to see her there.

Dean does a double take. All that fuss about being shotgun for the journey, and she’s giving it up for the actual film?

“Surprisingly well.” Cas says honestly, before moving on to more important matters. “Does this mean I get the front seat?”

“It does indeed.” Charlie says. “Me and Sam didn’t fancy watching from the back of the car, so we’re gonna set up on one of the benches or something. Close enough if trouble starts, but far enough away that we don’t have to watch you getting all gross with each other.”

“Dude.” Dean says. “We’re watching an action film, how gross do you think we’re going to get.”

“Good point.” Charlie says, but she has a look in her eye. Dean doesn’t catch it, but Cas does, and suddenly he wonders why they’d let her research and book the entire thing by herself.

*

“Is this an advert?” Dean asks, frowning at the screen. “I can’t remember how Die Hard starts, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in an airport with people hugging and shit.”

Cas shrugs, even though he can very plainly see from the studio name on the screen that this is the feature. Give Dean a few more minutes of ignorant bliss.

“Right no, who the fuck is this British prick?”

“Hugh Grant.” Cas says, mildly peeved that this piece of information is taking up space in his brain, and yet when he tries to remember the names of plant species they evade him with almost malicious certainty.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“He’s an actor.”

“Well, yeah, thanks for that.”

Cas shrugs. He hasn’t got any more information on the voice, other than that he stars in the film Love Actually. Aka, the film Charlie has somehow tricked them all into seeing.

“Why’s he banging on about love? Is this a trailer for some shitty British romcom. I didn’t know Drive-In’s even had trailers.”

“They don’t.” Cas says.

It takes Dean a moment, and then he swears, punches the steering wheel.

“I’m gonna fucking kill Charlie.” He grumbles, but Cas is pretty sure it’s mostly just some vague attempt at macho front.

“No you’re not.” Cas says, “Now stop complaining and hold my hand.”

So Dean does.

*

“So, did you two get to third base?” Charlie asks on the drive back.

Dean’s so jubilant that he doesn’t even bitch out at her for it.

“Yeah, hilarious. Jokes on you fuckers though, you and Sam picked that one between you, that means I get to decide what we do next.”

“We’re not going to a strip club.” Charlie says quickly, “I have my line. That is my line.”

“What, no—”

“Don’t sound so affronted. I _know_ you were thinking about it.”

“Once, when Dean thought we were both going to die the next day, he took me to a brothel.” Cas announces in a quiet, understated tone. Charlie’s attention whiplashes towards him like he’d screamed it.

“I’m sorry, _what_ now?”

“He said, ‘you're not gonna die a virgin, not on my watch’.”

“That was _not_ in the books.”

Sam is busy quietly pissing himself in the back of the car, while Dean tries to bluster an explanation past Charlie’s howls of disbelieving laughter.

“We thought we were going to _die._ I wanted his last night to be a good one!” He manages eventually, once Charlie’s calmed down enough to be heard over.

“Were you wishing you were the hooker, Dean?” She manages, before bursting into fits of giggles again.

“I – no!”

“Huh, so when exactly was it that you realised you were head over—”

Dean turns the radio on, whacks it up loud enough to drown out everything she’s saying and refuses to turn it down for the entire rest of the journey.

*

Dean draws the blanket up around his waist, lying down to face Cas. Sam and Charlie have gone to bed, and it’s just the two of them in the living room. The TV is on low, generating something more like white noise than anything followable. Cas likes it like that, the lack of space for silence. He had offered to put in headphones when Dean was sleeping, but Dean had shrugged it off, first with some worried nonsense about Cas strangling himself with the wires in his sleep, and then pointing out that as Cas sleeps on his side now it’d hurt his ears having one of those things pressed into it all night.

“So, today was okay?” Dean asks. After their previous conversation he’s a little worried about Cas putting on a brave face in front of the other two. He thinks – equal parts hope and trust – that Cas is more likely to be honest just to him.

“It was fine.” Cas confirms. “I barely felt a thing, even when we were outside the car.” He turns to look at Dean now, gaze shifting away from the tv. “I think the other thing was a fluke. I wasn’t quite ready for that much, and I overreacted.”

“And you’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if you’d felt even the smallest bit scared?”

“Yes.” Cas says, impatiently.

“Good.” Dean says, although he’s sorely tempted to tell Cas it’s a bit fucking cheeky for him to be pulling that _what kind of repressed lying bastard do you take_ me for expression when he’s literally said to Dean’s face that he’d try and stuff down his emotions better next time. “So, do you reckon you’d be up for doing something else tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, sitting in an unmoving car for two hours today was so taxing.”

“This new sarcastic you, I’m not sure I like it.”

Cas knows that Dean is just joking, that he means absolutely nothing by that comment, but still the bitter reply curls on his tongue, sour and caustic. He swallows it down with some difficulty.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well what I _really_ want to do, we need to wait until you’re able to walk a little bit easier, but I was looking it up and, well I don’t know your opinion on old churches, but there’s a few ones nearby that’re supposed to be beautiful – and I figured ‘cause Hannah’s in charge in heaven, official heavenly places would probably be some of the safest that’re out there and,” Dean realises he’s rambling somewhat, trails off. “So, yeah...”

“You’ve thought about this.” Cas notes.

“Um. A little. If the bunker got compromised, y’know, where would be a safe place to hide out until we could straighten shit out.”

Cas nods, he hadn’t thought about any of that. He doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to let in any lingering doubt at the safety of the bunker.

“I know the stuff around here probably isn’t anything compared to what you’ve seen cross the world, in y’know, the Middle East and Europe and stuff, but I figure we’d both be in the same state at the idea of getting on a plane right now, so Kansas it is.”

“You don’t like planes?”

Dean looks at Cas like he’s grown another head.

“Literally can’t think of anything worse. You must know that?”

“I had no idea.”

Dean snorts. “Why do think I drive everywhere?”

Cas shrugs. “An unhealthy attachment to your car, and the fact that you’re a wanted serial killer.”

Dean snorts. “Goddamn our lives are fucked up.”


	39. What You Have There, Is a Hole...

Cas takes to some of Sam’s exercise regimes with more grace than others. He begrudgingly does the isometric exercises, flat out refuses to do anything assisted.

“What’s the point in doing these stupid exercises if you’re doing it for me?” He snaps the first time Sam tries to help him rotate his ankle. Eventually Sam concedes, leaves him to it.

It’s slow and difficult progress. Cas has never had to work to maintain his strength – Jimmy Novak’s natural athleticism combined with regular hunting and other physical activities provided an effective enough buffer, even after Cas fell. To go from that to having to start from the ground up, all the while Sam Winchester badgers him about his eating habits – it’s wearying, to say the least.

There’s only one thing he doesn’t argue about, and that’s walking. Even at his most irascible and stubborn, point blank refusing to twitch his muscles one more time, he can always be persuaded to put on his trainers and go for a lap around the bunker.

“You know if you were as keen to do all the other exercises as you are to walk you’d recover a lot quicker.” Sam points out eventually, exasperated beyond exasperated.

“I like walking.” Cas gripes.

“I can tell.”

“It feels less pointless than all this bending and unbending.”

Sam laughs. “They’re called squats.”

“I know what they’re called. I just wanted to make sure my derision really came across.”

Sam sighs. “You know that walking doesn’t exercise all of your muscles.”

Cas grunts in agreement. He knows, and he knows he’s not helping himself, but sometimes he just can’t summon the strength to care. Ennui and lethargy mangled together until he can barely summon the energy to talk, never-mind spend time tensing and untensing his muscles.

When that happens he makes himself walk, because somehow, counterintuitively, it’s easier. At least with walking he can see some progress – one foot in front of the other, again and again. A solid imprint left in the ground to mark his passing.

Sam’s quiet, and Cas can’t tell if he’s being let off the hook, or if Sam’s winding up for a lecture about taking these things seriously. He hopes not, because it’s only going to end in a goddamn screaming match. He is taking this seriously, as much as he’s able.

“Can you swim?” Sam says, at last.

“Yes.” Cas says, gruffly. He’s a decent swimmer, and Sam knows this, ‘cause the last time he did it was on their road-trip. A holiday that seems a long, long fucking time ago.

“And that stuff on your back, it’s waterproof, right?”

“I believe so.”

“Okay, so how about instead of sacking off your exercises to go walking, next time we go swimming?”

Cas looks at him blankly, slowly looks around the room, as if expecting Sam to press a button and reveal a hidden pool or something. When that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming he simply asks, “Where?”

Sam laughs like he’s made a joke, then slowly seems to realise that Cas just looks confused.

“What do you mean – hang on. You’re telling me you’ve never seen the pool?”

“No. What pool?”

“I thought Dean gave you the tour?”

“He did. I saw a basement, a shooting range, bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen, a library, a living room, and the door to ‘the dumb gym Sam spends all his time in like a stupid fitness freak.’ No pool.”

Sam nods. Of course Dean wouldn’t bother to show Cas the gym. He’s spent a grand total of about 15 minutes in there the entire time he’s lived in the bunker — and he’s never bothered to investigate any of the rooms leading off from it.

“Welcome to the natatorium.” Sam says, opening the door and switching on the lights. Cas follows him, doesn’t look too impressed.

“I’m not sure I’d really call that a pool.” He points out. “What you have there is a hole.”

He’s not wrong, it’s less a pool, and more a space where a pool used to be. But there’s filtration equipment that looks, admittedly to Sam’s untrained eye, like it might still work. Plus he assumed it’s still hooked up to the bunker’s mysterious water system – and if it’s not, well, between Dean and Charlie they’ll certainly be able to work something out.

“Well, yeah.” Sam says. “But once we’ve cleaned it and filled it I think it’ll be perfectly workable. What d’ya think?”

Cas thinks about it, remembering the sensation of floating weightless and free in the sea.

“I think I’d like that very much.”

Sam grins, wide and excited. Cas’s lack of progress had been worrying him, he’d be lying if he said otherwise. Between the refusing to resort to magic, and the slacking off with his exercises the general impression Sam has been getting is one of someone wallowing in his suffering and reluctant to move past it.

And Sam feels guilty just for thinking that, he feels guilty a lot around Cas – for giving up on him, for doubting him, and now for pushing him.

“Great! I’ll get Dean and Charlie and we can make a start on fixing it up.” He jumps down into the pool and examines the sides. “There’s like a thousand layers of dirt embedded in the walls.”

Cas sits down heavily on the edge of the pool, legs dangling free. Sam’s head is level with his knees.

“I think I’d rather it if you didn’t involve Dean in this.” He says, slowly.

Sam sighs, hauls himself up using just his arms and sits beside Cas, making sure not to touch him.

“Is this about your back?”

Cas shrugs, there’s no point denying it.

“You can’t keep that shirt on forever.” Sam points out, trying so hard to keep his tone reasonable. “He’s going to see the damage eventually.”

“I just want it to heal a little bit more.”

Sam wants to shake him, the urge curling his hands into fists against the ledge of the pool. Cas is so determined not to hurt Dean, but all he’s doing is kicking that pain into the grass – to be collected on in goddamn double when Dean finds out that Cas hid this from him.

“I’m not going to fight you, I know how that ends, but you have to know how against this I am.”

“Your concern is noted.”

“Yeah, concern, Cas. I’m trying to help you, and speaking of which, when was the last time you changed your bandages?” Sam asks, unable to keep the sharpness out of his tone.

“Charlie looked at them yesterday.”

Jesus, fuck. So everyone except Dean knows about this, of course, of fucking course. Because that’s only going to make the situation so much fucking worse. Hey, Dean. Cas told everyone but you but it’s no big deal please don’t blow up about it promise it’s fine.

He needs to wrestle the subject back away from this, lest he snap.

“Look, I need Dean to look at the filtration system and the pipes and all that other stuff. He doesn’t have to see you in the pool ever, he just has to fix it up. We can tell him it’s for me if you really want.”

“Hmm.”

“Look, he doesn’t come in the gym while we’re doing your exercises, does he?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked him not to.”

“Right, so just ask him not to come in here while you’re swimming, either.”

“And if he gets suspicious?”

“Why would he get suspicious about that, but not about you not wanting him around while you exercise?”

Cas grunts, which is his new way of saying he disagrees with you but he can’t be bothered to think of any more arguments.

“So I’m okay to get Dean’s help with this?”

Cas shrugs, and Sam takes it. It’s all he’s going to get.

*

It takes them a couple of days to get the pool ready. Sam and Charlie clean it out – both relieved that the pool appears to have been drained when the bunker was abandoned – or perhaps was never filled. Either way, dust is a lot easier to clean away than years of stagnant water.

Dean fiddles with the pipes, griping and complaining on a predictable loop. He cycles through various strains of, ‘I can’t believe nobody told me we have a goddamn pool,’ to ‘I don’t understand how these stupid fucking pipes work,’ and finally around to ‘just because I know how to install a hot tub doesn’t mean I know jack about this voodoo shit.’

“Why does he keep bringing up hot tubs?” Charlie asks, eventually.

Sam shrugs. “We stayed in a place in Yellowstone with one. I think he was pretty taken with it – said he was gonna build one in the bunker when we got back.”

“You have a hot tub?”

Sam shakes his head.

“He spent ages designing it, researching it and working out where it was gonna go – looking into the plumbing and how best to build one. Jesus, I told him just to get a prefab one but he looked at me like I’d suggested virgin sacrifice.”

“When he nests, he nests hard.” Charlie points out. She’s been on the receiving end.

“Yeah, well, he said he reckoned Cas had forgotten about it, and he was gonna surprise him, and he didn’t want to surprise him with something shitty and fake.”

“That sounds like Dean.”

“Yeah, well, then Cas went missing and that was the end of that.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.” Sam says, and goes back to scrubbing the wall. He feels like that sums up their lives pretty well. Try to make something good, and watch is fucking disintegrate by the wayside as the next catastrophe comes along.


	40. Everyone Loves a Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry for the unplanned one week hiatus, moving flat (In the middle of a pandemic, I hate my landlord!!!) and had less chapters ready than I thought I did.

The day starts relatively well. Cas wakes up slowly, no sudden jerk to consciousness – Dean’s suffered a few bruises from rogue elbows that way. Dean maintains that this isn’t new behaviour, that Cas has been beating him up in his sleep as long as they’ve been sharing a bed and he just has pointier elbows now. Cas is pretty sure he’s lying, but he lets it slide.

They have a vague plan for the day, a walk in a nearby park about which Charlie and Dean are being almost weirdly secretive, and while Cas isn’t sure he’s looking forward to it – too much driving for something that could easily be done in the grounds around the bunker, he’s at least not actively dreading it.

Apparently a change of scenery will do him good, and he honestly can’t be fucked to argue.

It’s one of his three new defining moods, along with ‘horny but unable to do anything about it’ and ‘tired’. It’s a rich and varied life he leads.

Dean’s not next to him when he opens his eyes which is not unusual but still a shame. Cas sleeps such irregular hours now that it’s not practical for Dean to always be there when he wakes, disappointing thought that is. 

He sits up and fumbles around for his phone, finds it under his pillow. Dean doesn’t like him keeping it there, something about frying his brain that Charlie had out loud scoffed at, but he figures that even if Dean is right and it is going to do him harm, how much more can it do than has already been done. Not a healthy attitude, he knows, but it’s the only one he’s got right now.

He brings up the messenger app and tries to type, but his fingers are shaking all over the place. He can’t hold the phone still, never-mind get them to go where he wants, generating a meaningless jumble of characters that he struggles to delete over and over until the little box is full.

His temper gets the better of him, and he hurls the phone across the room. He hears it smashing, grabs a pillow and howls furiously into it, doesn’t want to scream out loud and bring anyone in with their concern and accidentally patronising sympathy.

He breathes deeply into the pillow for a moment, it smells like Dean and although he’s not a dog and that’s not enough to calm him, he does manage to get himself grounded after a few moments. It’s just a phone, and his hands will be fine in a few hours. It’s just it’s just it’s just. It’s just he still somehow isn’t used to his body not being in perfect working order. Somehow he still forgets that’s he’s half or less than he used to be.

He retrieves his phone and gives it a quick glance. The screen is cracked, but it doesn’t appear to have smashed properly. Small miracles. He switches on the TV and lies back down, lets the almost white noise buzz of old reruns serve as his lullaby.

*

Cas climbs out of the car and stretches. His back twinges, but less than he expected. He’s recovering, albeit slowly. There was a time when he would have known whether that was normal or not – a time when he could have read with a glance the ability of each particular human body to recover when pitted against limiting factors like starvation and vitamin deprivation.

And then he could have ignored all that information and lain two fingers to a forehead and vanished the hurt and the pain away.

Now he’s just trundling along like a regular mortal, drumming his fingers on the desk and waiting for his muscle and skin to finish knitting back together in their own time. It’s wearying, to say the least.

He looks around, curious as to what’s so interesting about this place that it necessitated dragging him all the way here just for a walk. It looks pretty much the same as the woods around the bunker, but he’s giving this a chance, like the adult he is.

Hmph.

He follows Charlie down the path, flanked by Dean and Sam like bodyguards. He considered suggesting to them that they all shave their heads and acquire sunglasses. He can’t even remember what film that’s from – or if it’s just an amalgamation of them all. Wonders idly if all this pop culture junk would be more or less annoying if he could remember enough to place it all, not just fragments.

“What’re you frowning so hard about?”Dean asks.

“I hadn’t realised I was.”

“Looked like you were trying to start a forest fire with your glare.”

“I was trying to remember where I’d heard a quote.”

Dean laughs. “Yeah, get used to that. It’ll come to you for no fucking reason few hours, once you’ve stopped caring, and really piss you off.”

“The joys of humanity.”

“The price you pay for the joy that is pie.”

Cas smiles. Trust Dean to bring it back to pie.

“Are we nearly there?” Dean yells at Charlie, and Cas gives him a look.

“We’re going on a walk, Dean.” He explains, like he’s talking to a toddler – because he just can’t resist needling Dean. “There is no _there_ , unless you count when we get back to the car and go home.”

“Buddy, we ain’t even started yet.” Dean says with a wink.

Which is an interesting response. Whether good or bad, Cas isn’t quite sure.

Charlie turns around and glares daggers at him. “Don’t you dare ruin it. Asshole.” She says.

“Ruin what?” Cas asks.

“Nothing.” They say in chorus, which is never a good sign.

Apart they’re ridiculous, together they’re a force of nature.

*

They emerge from the trees, blinking as they step into the sun.

“Surprise!” Dean says, waving his hand at the beach-like shore of the lake in front of them.

“Um. Thank you?” Cas says warily, squinting at the water and wishing he’d brought sunglasses. It’s almost too dazzling to look at. He’s not even sightly prepared for a walk along a sandy shore — his shoes aren’t waterproof and he’s wearing jeans.

“You have no idea why we’re here, do you?” Asks Dean, suppressing a laugh.

Cas narrows his eyes, part glare, part semi blind squint.

“You said we were going on a walk. I trusted that was what you meant.”

“Naive.” Charlie says, waving to a man on the shore.

Dean scans the length of the beach, but Charlie’s sketchy friend is the only person he can see. He’s got interesting taste in clothes, although in fairness he’s much more appropriately dressed for the beach than any of the rest of them – shorts and one of those bucket hats that depending on your age either makes you look like a member of a 90’s Britpop band or someone who lives in a tinfoil lined cabin and mutters about the government stealing your brainwaves. This guy is young enough that he’s skewing more towards Britpop, but he’s got a tinfoiler look about him, suspicious and a bit twitchy. Kinda reminds Dean of Frank Devereaux.

He doesn’t trust him on sight, but that’s just Dean. He stops walking and looks over at Cas to gauge if he’s wigging out about this complete and utter stranger. The dude’s one of Charlie’s loons, she can deal with him while they keep a nice distance. Not that Cas looks too bothered, seems to be too busy trying to work out why the fuck they’re here.

The guy waves back at Charlie and then does that awkward thing of two people meeting in the street where they both walk towards each other, even though their final destination is where he was originally standing. They embrace when they meet and then launch into an animated discussion about god knows what as they make their way towards the shore.

“We’re going sailing?” Cas asks Dean as he notices that there’s a boat moored nearby. Nothing fancy, but it’s got sails and a motor and more than enough space for four people.

“Got it in one. Sun, sea – sort of – cold drinks, and best of all, not a single human being alive for miles. We’re the only people here.”

“Are you suggesting Charlie’s friend is a vampire?”

“Whuh?”

“You said there was no-one here alive. That guy seems pretty alive to me.” Cas says, in a long suffering tone. No-one gets his fucking jokes and he’s always so annoyed about it. Hannah says it’s because he’s too deadpan. He maintains it’s just because humans are fucking stupid.

“He’s not staying.”

“How’d you manage to clear the entire place?”

“Charlie’s magic voodoo.”

“She hacked a lake?”

“Ha-ha. She did something to do with contaminate warnings. I dunno man, ask the evil genius herself.”

She’s beckoning them over, her companion making his way along the beach in the other direction.

“Who was that guy?” Sam asks when they get to her.

She winks. “For me to know, and you to forever wonder.”

“Okay, Dickhead Tailor Soldier Spy.” Dean scoffs. “So who knows how to sail this thing?”

“It’s got a motor.” She says dismissively, how hard can it be.”

Cas looks the boat up and down. “Those sound like famous last words if ever I heard them. How angry will your mysterious friend be when you crash it?”

“I’m not gonna crash it, shut your face hole.”

“Of course. But I’m sure you won’t object if I put on a life jacket anyway.”

She scoffs, “Yeah, like Dean’s gonna let you on the water without one.”

She has a point.

They climb aboard and the first thing Dean does, after checking everyone’s life jackets, is to hunt out a selection of coolers full of booze, soda and cold food. He hands out the beers, surprising Cas when he’s offered one. Dean shrugs at his expression.

It’s funny, Cas hadn’t thought he’d missed the taste of beer. It would have been the last thing he asked for if he was given the choice. And yet. And yet it’s so welcome, so familiar. It tastes like humanity – the good things about it. The post hunt celebrations, the bonfires and barbecues, relaxing in front of the TV or in a bar. The taste of it from Dean’s mouth when they’re drunk and horny and lost in each other.

“Am I watching his o-face?” He hears Charlie ask. “Is that what’s happening?”

He gives her the finger, which just earns a burst of laughter. He wavers for a moment between the urge to chug the entire thing down in one go, and the desire to savour it. The latter wins, and with a slight degree of reluctance he puts it down.

“Not enjoying it?” Dean asks.

“The opposite, actually.” He admits.

“Nothing like a good beer in good company.”

“I am excellent company.” Charlie interjects. “Shame about you lot, though.”

She gets told to fuck off in stereo.


	41. Sparks Fly

Sam takes the role of Skipper, stripping off his shirt and standing at the wheel with one single beer which he finishes before switching to soda with a pointed look at Dean. Dean just winks and opens another beer, upends both that and the other, half finished one into his mouth and makes a right fucking mess when he realises he can’t swallow as quickly as he pours.

Despite the wind, Sam manages to keep the boat sailing pretty smoothly. It’s enough to make Cas wonder if he’s sailed before. He doesn’t ask though, content to listen to Dean and Charlie bickering good-naturedly for the time being. They’re both idiots, but at least they’re self aware about it.

Eventually conversation dies down, Charlie pulls a comic book out of her bag, and Dean lies on a deckchair with his hands folded over his stomach. And Cas, Cas gets twitchy.

It’s quiet out here. Just the sounds of lapping waves and seagulls.

 _They’re not seagulls._ Cas thinks, _there’s no such thing as a seagull._

Which occupies his thoughts for about three seconds. Five at a stretch, if he repeats it a few times. Not enough to block the other stuff out.

It’s the silence that does it. The long, deep dread. That’s what so much of his time with Cahor was marked out by, the almost complete absence of sound. Hours lying, shivering, waiting for something to happen. The prelude to torture that’s often just as bad, sometimes even worse. Space for the imagination to come slinking in with a wicked grin and a fistful of nails.

He can feel the prickling under his skin more acutely when there’s nothing to distract him, too. Everywhere his clothes touch is hypersensitive and even though his nails are blunt and useless he wants to scratch and gouge until it turns to pain. He can deal with pain. He’s used to—

“Hey, Cas?” Dean’s voice is soft, and when Cas comes back to himself, blinking dazedly, he can see a hint of concerned frown. He’s hiding it well, but not well enough to fool Cas. “Did I ever tell you about one of our early hunts, the one with all the mirrors?”

Cas sits up abruptly, shakes his head.

Dean rubs his hand together, “Well, buckle up amigo.”

Charlie groans, but doesn’t make any other kind of protest, so Dean just barrels on.

“So we get wind of a case that’s all our kind of horrifyingly juicy.”

“Don’t say juicy.” Sam interjects. “Juicy makes it sound like you enjoy it.”

“Alright, _Mr Ring Binder full of favourite serial killers_. You wanna tell the story, you’re more than welcome.”

Sam just shakes his head, and Dean snorts like yeah, thought so.

“So we swindle our way into the coroners office, as per, but apart from the fact that his eyeballs are melted and his skull is full of human soup we can’t find jackshit. Next up we go see the vic’s family. Little boy Sammy pops a boner for one of her friends and exchanges phone numbers—”

“Shut the fuck up, Dean.”

Dean apologises, which earns him a startled look from Charlie and Cas. He grimaces at them, mouths, “Jess.” It was not long after she’d died, and he’s apparently still touchy about it.

“So, anyway, this chick calls us up the next day and says her other friend is dead too. Both her close friends dead in the space of a few days, she must’a thought she was fucking cursed or something. ‘Nyway, she helps us get into her friend’s room and we find a name on the back of the mirror. Larry or Barry or summit like that.”

“Gary.” Sam adds, because he’s got a weirdly perfect memory when it comes to this shit. Can remember the name of some dude from a case a billion years ago, but not to pick his dirty fucking socks off the floor.

“Yeah, so we do a bit of digging and it turns out it’s the name of a kid killed in a hit and run – by a car matching the second vic’s description. Suspicious enough that it warrants checking out the first vic, and low and behold, on the back of their mirror what do we find – another name and another guilty secret.”

“Suicidal wife.” Sam fills in, ‘cause Dean might pretend he’s being enigmatically vague, but really he just drinks too much and his memory is fucking patchy.

“Yeah, thanks Samantha. You wanna let me tell the story?”

Sam gestures for Dean to continue, and Dean flips him the bird.

“So fast forward all the boring research, and we’re in Indiana, on the trail of this chick Mary—”

“Her name you remember?” Sam says, like he’s accusing Dean of something.

“Yeah I fucking remember her name. The urban legend isn’t called Bloody Sophie, is it?”

Charlie laughs.

“Anyway, Mary was found dead in front of a mirror with a name scrawled on it in blood. Only thing was, she was cremated which usually spells sayonara for the restless dead, but all the mirrors in the case got us thinking – what if her spirit got trapped in the one she died in.

“So we track down the mirror of doom to some antique shop in the town the case started in, and the jolly green gigantic idiot over there decides it’s his job to summon her. Cue bleeding from the eyes, the whole nine. So then obviously it’s up to me to save the day – which I do by showing her her own reflection ‘cause I’m a genius. Mirror Mary whacks ghost Mary with the guilty conscience crap which causes her to go boom, and then I smash the mirror just to be sure.”

“You smashed a mirror?” Charlie asks with mock horror. “Isn’t that 7 years bad luck?”

“I did not smash _one_ mirror, no.”

“How many?”

Dean shrugs. “Less than twenty more than ten.”

“That was about 10 years ago,” Sam says, “so that means you’ve got somewhere between 60 and 130 years of bad luck to ride out.”

“20 to 90.” Cas corrects, and Dean looks at him blankly. “You spent 40 years in hell, I think that’s fairly unlucky.”

“Well, if the ex-agent of fate says it’s 20, I’ll take that.”

“Y’know, hearing that story makes me wonder if breaking a mirror really is that unlucky.” Charlie teases. “You’ve had some shitty hands, sure, but you also met Cas and came back from the dead like a bajillion times. Can’t be that unlucky.”

“So what, everyone around me dying is just the universes way of keeping me grounded?”

“Not everyone.” She says. “Unless I died and no-one told me.”

“Dude, if anyone could unknowingly come back from the dead it’d be you.”

“I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment.”

“That’s not how it was meant.” Dean says, winking.

Charlie, ever the mature adult, tells him to fuck off.

*

They while away the hours idly after that. Dean makes sure conversation never stalls for too long, for which Cas is grateful. As the sun dips below the horizon it starts to get a little cooler. Sam puts his shirt back on, drops anchor and comes to join them, unclenching enough to have another beer once Charlie points out that the other one will be out of his system now.

She watches with no small amusement as Dean and Cas start to inch closer together, seemingly unaware that they’re doing it.

“So,” Sam begins, once darkness starts to fall properly. “we actually brought some fireworks. I dunno if that’s something that’s gonna ‘cause you problems, Cas?”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t think why. As long as you don’t fire them at me.”

“Scouts honour, all explosions will be directed at the sky.”

“Maybe set one off first?” Charlie urges caution. The fireworks were her idea, and she knows exactly how much of a punch they’ll pack if they let them all off. If Cas has a problem, it’s gonna be a very fucking big and prolonged one.

“You wanna pick which?” Dean asks, ‘cause he can see Cas getting a little antsy at all the questions.

Cas grins, looking goddamn evil where the torchlight picks up the angles and planes of his face.

“The biggest one.”

“Okay, Fire Marshall Bill, How about we save the big one for last. Charlie’s got a kickass display planned.”

Cas frowns. “Why did you ask me if you’re not going to let me choose.”

“The illusion of control.” Charlie says, digging through her bag and pulling out a remote control. She laughs at Sam’s confused look. “What, you thought we were going to set off fireworks from this little boat? I know you guys have cheated death so many time it’s a hobby at this point, but I want to live.”

She fiddles with the thing for a moment, counts down. “And in three, two, one.”

There’s a high pitched whistling noise and a thin yellow light darts into the sky from the shoreline. The rocket explodes into a starburst of blue sparks, and for an uneasy moment Cas thinks they look like shards of grace, exploding across the sky. He shakes the thought off, though. They’re just fireworks.

He’s never seen them before, not from this perspective. From heaven fireworks look almost tedious. From earth they are beautiful.

“I take it we’re go?” Dean whispers into his ear, close enough that it tickles.

Cas nods, and Dean gives Charlie the thumbs up.

She grins, the look of a raging pyrotechnic being given full excuse to play with explosions, hits the button.

“Boomtime.”

*

The display lasts for nearly half an hour – the palms she had to grease for that, honestly. She didn’t put the display together herself – trusting to an expert to do that, and she’s glad she did. It’s phenomenal to watch reds and blues and greens chasing each other across the sky. Bursting to light again and again. It should be repetitive, but somehow it’s hypnotic. There’s a playlist going in the background too, bassy and loud, covering the whistling of the rockets and making it more of a surprise when each new spark burst to light.

She sneaks a glance over at Dean and Cas, sees Cas staring at the sky with almost rapturous wonder, sees Dean ignoring the whole thing and staring at Cas. Figures.

*

The final rocket goes off, a vivid burst of colour and noise. Cas turns to Dean to say something, express his wonder in some way, but Dean’s not looking at the sky. He’s looking at Cas, smiling nearly as widely as Cas is.

“Did you even watch the display?” Cas asks, gently exasperated.

“A little. I had my own show.”

Cas laughs, and it’s easy, so easy, to just reach over and take Dean’s head in his hands and kiss him.

It’s soft, and gentle. There’s no furious passion or need behind it. It doesn’t go any further, or develop into anything more desperate. It’s just a gentle, intimate touch. And yet, and yet Cas’s heart is beating so fast he’s amazed it doesn’t burst out of his chest. He can feel every nerve ending twitching and burning but for once he doesn’t mind, for once he welcomes it. He feels alive. He feels so goddamn alive.

He feel like maybe, maybe there’s a chance things could get back to normal. That he could get past this and everything could be okay.

And this time he doesn’t stuff it down, he fucking revels in it.

Dean brings a hand up to brush against his cheekbone, breaks the kiss and rests his forehead on Cas’s.

“Is this okay?” He mumbles, and Cas laughs, kisses him again with the same casual intimacy.

“Yes, Dean. It’s okay.”


	42. Far Too Casual

There’s a strange tension between Dean and Cas after that. Dean can feel it like a physical thing – a current that thrums through his bones when he gets too close, fading to a needy ache when they’re apart. It’s more intense than he’s ever felt it before. Yeah he’s felt tension between them, yeah he’s missed Cas before, but this is ridiculous.

Sitting close but not touching makes him tense, unable to concentrate on anything except that lack of contact. He sort of thinks that Cas feels the same, too. Little bits of body language dropping hints, fingers twitching towards him, but he ignores the signs as best he can. It’s up to Cas to make a move, that’s the way this has gotta be. His pace or not at all.

So Dean stuffs it down and half suffers, half basks in it. He’s being so careful, so many casual touches that he railroads at the last minute. He can practically hear Charlie laughing at him, fuck, he’d be laughing at himself if he was on the outside of this.

When did he get to be such a goddamn wimp?

Actually scratch that, he’s pretty sure it’s been there all along, now it’s just getting a chance to come out and play.

He decides to channel his flighty, nervous energy into something constructive – mostly because if he doesn’t he’s gonna fucking pop with it. Cas really seemed to enjoy the boat trip, and it was great, yeah, they had a great time. And it was kinda romantic, if you squint real hard and pretend Charlie and Sam weren’t there.

It’s a catch 22. Cas probably wouldn’t feel safe out in the open with just Dean, but it’s also super hard to have a date – and a date wouldn’t be pushing boundaries because there’d be no pressure to do anything so shut the fuck up shut the fuck up stupid fucking voice of doubt – when you’ve got two chaperones.

But Dean has a plan. And hot damn, it’s gonna be good.

*

“If I blindfold you, are you gonna freak out?” Dean asks, far too casually for anyone to ever utter those words.

Cas looks up from his book – some pulp adventure thing so boring he can’t even remember the title but which he can’t put down until he knows the ending. It’s rare he doesn’t know the ending.

“I don’t think so.” He says, with what he thinks is the appropriate amount of wariness for someone who’s just been asked that question. From Dean’s answering expression, he gathers that amount is murder level suspicious. “What are you panning?”

“A surprise.” Dean’s grin could shame a Cheshire Cat. “Go put on a nice shirt and meet me back her in an hour.”

Cas marks his page with a bookmark, because he’s faced Sam’s wrath about dog-earing pages once and that is enough for any man, and sets it down slowly.

“You’ve been awfully keen on surprises lately.”

“The boat was Charlie’s idea, this one’s mine.”

“Does that mean I’ve got one from Sam to look forward to as well? Do I get to grade them?”

“You spend half the day working out with Sam and the other half reading. You’re living Sam’s nerd-mare already.”

Cas snorts, but not for the reason Dean thinks. He sorts because he’s pretty sure his sessions with Sam are the worst bit of Sam’s year, never-mind day. He’s not an easy patient, stroppy, prone to fits of pique and ignoring exercises he’s set in favour of swimming laps in the pool with a t-shirt on like a sunburned child on a beach holiday.

But at least he’s self aware.

*

The blindfold goes on with minimal degrees of panic. Cahor never actually blindfolded him – he wasn’t fussed whether Cas knew where he was or not. He seemed to quite enjoy it, later, when the locations started to take on some significance.

He made it into a game. If Cas could guess where he was, he’d get a treat. The first few times it was food and water – back when he cared about those things. After that it was always something a little more recreational.

God, he’d kill for something recreational right now.

*

The blindfold stays on as he’s eased into the car, throughout the journey too.

“This seems excessive.” He says, having to raise his voice over the AC-DC blaring from the car speakers. Dean stops singing along, turns it down and Cas continues. “Unless you’re taking me to your secret lair... your other secret lair.”

“The bunker is not my secret lair.”

“It’s off the grid, and mostly underground.”

“It’s not a lair.” Dean mutters petulantly. “It’s a bat cave.”

“The difference being?”

“Bad guys have lairs. Heroes have caves.”

Cas snorts. “My mistake.” He hopes Dean can sense him rolling his eyes behind the fabric.

“And even if it _was_ a lair, it wouldn’t be my secret lair, it’d be _our_ secret lair.”

Cas doesn’t know whether to hit him or kiss him. Settles for neither because of the blindfold. Last thing he wants to do is run them off the road by accident.

He doesn’t want to die blindfolded in a car. It just seems like a bit of a let down for that to be the thing that broke his, admittedly miraculously tenacious, grip on this mortal coil.

“I blindfolded you before we got in the car ‘cause we’re parking too close for me to blindfold you when we get there and I can’t do it while driving.” Dean finally explains, after the silence stretches for a minute or so.

“Don’t trust me to keep my eyes closed?”

“Not even slightly, you sly bastard.”

Cas reaches over to where he thinks Dean’s arm is and pinches, inevitably misses, but it doesn’t matter, he gets his point across.

And he gets to hear Dean laugh again, so really, who’s the real winner.

*

Dean helps Cas out of the car, leads him carefully forward. Cas tried to pinpoint what he’s stepping on, some kind of dirt track it feels like, and then grass. Are they in a forest?

They come to a stop and Dean whispers in his ear.

“I’m gonna take the blindfold off now, ‘kay?”

Cas nods, suppresses a shudder at Dean’s breathing, warm on the side of his face.

The blindfold comes off and Cas blinks as his eyes adjust to the light. They’re standing a few meters away from a cliff edge, with a view for miles of flat, wheat covered fields, the sun low in a rich blue sky. It looks like something out of a postcard.

“Just like our first date.” Dean says, scuffing at the dirt with his foot. “And just in case you’re worried about being out in the open like this, I’ve warded the ever-loving shit outta the area. Charlie helped me do it. There’s sigils carved into the dirt, the trees. I’d’ve painted the goddamn wildlife if I could’ve caught it.”

Cas smiles, for once not annoyed by Dean’s anxious babying. He wouldn’t have felt safe out here alone without it, that’s just a stupid fucking fact.

“It’s wonderful, thank you.”

Dean dips his head, embarrassed but pleased, and then hands Cas the blanket he’d been carrying.

“Lay that down wherever you feel safe. Maybe not too close to the edge, huh.”

“I’m well aware of the dangers of large vertical drops, thank you.”

Dean ignores him, returns to the jeep and starts pawing through the boot.

It takes Dean several trips to bring everything over, and Cas knows better than to offer to help. He just sits and watches the sun as food and drink pile up around him. Enough to feed about 8 people at a conservative estimate, but he supposes any leftovers can be brought back with them. There’s a single beer each, and a couple of non-alcoholic alternatives.

“We ain’t got Sam around to be designated driver, so I’m afraid we’re both gonna have to be sensible.” Dean says, when he notices Cas looking. “ But we can always get shitfaced when we get back, if that’s what you wanna do.”

Cas shakes his head, picks up a paper plate and starts to load it with food while Dean explains what various things are, as though he isn’t talking to someone who was around before hummus was even invented.

He humours Dean, anyway, pretends not to notice when he complains about Sam making him take salad and then almost in the same breath loads up his sandwich full of tomato, lettuce and onion.

Cas plates up a little of everything, surprises himself when he looks down half an hour later and notices he’s pretty much cleared it. He feels hungrier than he has for a long time. Maybe it’s the fresh air, or maybe the effort Dean clearly put into packing all of this up.

The sun starts to set and Cas reaches over and rests his hand on Dean’s leg. Dean flashes him a quick smile, switches his plate so he can eat one handed and then rests the other on top of Cas’s. They watch the sky fade from purple and red to black in near silence. For once Cas is content not to fill the space, lost in thoughts of a better time – the last time he sat and watched the sun set with Dean, the heady months afterwards...

It’s funny, he never thought of himself as a nostalgic person. Maybe things in the present were shit, but what’s the point in looking back to escape that, at a past that was and always will be out of reach. Always keep going, never linger.

Maybe that was before he had a past worth reminiscing about.

Dean’s kiss is hesitant, but not unexpected, or unwelcome. Cas brings up a hand to the back of Dean’s head and presses them together firmer, feeling the tension bleed out of Dean a little as he accepts that Cas wants this, that he’s not imposing.

They don’t go any further than that, even though Cas could. The air between them is rich with tension, and Cas can feel nervous excitement building, threatening to overflow and spur him to action. They could re-enact their first date in full, fuck in the wilderness where no-one can see them, come on the cliffside and drive back home, loose and sated.

But they can’t, because as much as Dean might have taken precautions, as safe as they might be here, it’s still not enough for Cas to let his guard down like that. Wouldn’t be enough for Dean either. Neither of them would be able to enjoy it.

They kiss until they can’t bear it any more. Until Cas’s fingers are clenched in the ground and Dean is visibly straining to hold himself in check. Cas breaks it off, taking pity on Dean trembling at his touch.

“I don’t put out until the third date.” He says, to break the tension still hanging between them, the urge to say just fuck it and lay Dean out on the backseat of the car.

Dean blinks at him, confused for a moment, and then laughs.

“Buddy, we’ve been on a lot more than three dates.”

Cas shrugs. “You can respect my rules or you can sleep alone.”

Dean grins, shifts away until there’s a respectable amount of distance between them. He shifts his paper plate, trying and failing to hide his boner.

Cas rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to hide it. I know it’s there.”

“I feel like a horny teenager whose girlfriend won’t put out. Except somehow I’m both the teenager _and_ the girlfriend.” Dean gripes.

“You’re not the only one.” Cas agrees. “But we both know this isn’t the time or the place.”

“I know that, and you know that, but do _they_ know that.” He waves his hand at his and Cas’s crotches.

“You’re ridiculous, I hope you know that.”

Dean grumbles indistinctly, busies himself putting away some of the food. Cas has started absentmindedly foraging, and he leaves out anything he touches.

They sit in companionable silence for a little bit, and then Dean points at a cluster of starts.

“That constellation there is the saucepan.”

“Is it, now?”

“Mhmm. It’s called that because it looks like a saucepan. They weren’t very sophistimacated back in the old times.”

“Sophisticated enough to have saucepans.”

Dean ignores him. “That one is the drunk dancer.”

“Funny, I thought it was called Taurus.”

“Yeah, like anyone could look at that and think it’s a bull and not some drunk idiot crouched down waving his hands to the beat.”

“Alright, what’s that one?” Cas points out Virgo.

“That is the jackass slipping on a banana peel. Or the banana for short.”

*

Eventually it gets cold enough to force them to retreat, goosebumps pricking up and down Cas’s skin. He tries to brave it for a while, but Dean notices his teeth chattering.

“Dude, why didn’t you say something?” He holds out his hand, helps Cas up and to the car.

Cas just shrugs, unable to force out the reason, what he wants to say.

‘Cause he’s afraid when this moment ends everything will go back to normal. And he’s so fucking sick of normal.


	43. Monkey Paw Wish Fulfilment

“What do you even need two different kinds of salad for?” Dean grumbles as Sam makes them go back to pick up the packet of kale infused wank he’d missed on their first sweep of the aisle.

“What do you need two types of steak for?” Sam bats back, rolling his eyes.

“Uh because they’re two totally different types of meat for two totally different meals for your fat ass.”

“And these are two different types of plant for two different meals.” Sam points out, smiling like the asshole he is.

“Your face is two different kinds of plant.” Dean mutters, and he looks so harrumphed that Cas bursts out laughing, which of course sets everyone off, much to Dean’s disgust.

“Fuck you all.” He grumbles. “I’ll be in the bakery aisle.”

“The pie section, by any chance?” Charlie asks, as Dean abandons the trolley and walks off. He gives her the finger.

They go after him one they’ve stopped laughing, find him pointedly away from the pies, looking at some kind of rye bread. Charlie grabs a fresh apple pie, wafts it under his nose.

“Will you forgive me if I buy you pie?” She asks.

They don’t get to hear Dean’s answer.

There’s a shout from behind them – Cas – and then the sound of something crashing to the ground. Dean turns, sees Cas on the floor, wild eyed and shaking with panic.

All sensible thoughts flown from his head, he rushes over. “What happened?” He yells, as he grabs Cas by the shoulders.

Cas flinches away, lashes out at Dean, trying to punch his hands away. Dean lets go and Cas scrambles backwards on the floor, away from the source of his torment. From Dean.

Cas barely looks human, bared teeth and rolling eyes. He didn’t look that bad a minute ago, Dean did this, he fucked up, he.

He takes a step back, doesn’t know what else to do, caught in a whirling mess of what have you done, what the fuck have you done to him. He can’t focus, can’t parse that he should be checking the perimeter, making sure Cas is safe from everything but his own mind and that they don’t have to throw him in the car and drive off, panic attack or no panic attack.

And it’s not too much of a big deal, because Sam is here, because Charlie is here, and they step into the breach no problem. But what if they weren’t, what if this had happened when they were out on the cliffside, or in the car?

Charlie crouches down in front of Cas, addresses him low and soft.

“Hey, Cas. Can you hear me?” There’s no response, but she carries on talking. “You’re gonna be okay. We’re here, we won’t let anything happen to you. I need you to focus on the sound of my voice, okay, can you do that?”

His breathing doesn’t slow, but he’s looking at her with something like recognition, not the blank, animal fear he had before.

“I need you to concentrate on your breathing, nice and easy. You’re breathing too fast and we need to get that down otherwise you’re gonna pass out. Can you breathe with me? Otherwise we’re gonna have to get you a paper bag. In, two, three. Out, two, three. Can you do that?”

It takes a while, but eventually he levels out, seems to come back mostly to himself, if a little twitchy. Charlie helps him to his feet, and he’s still shaking, but judging from his expression it’s not out of fear this time. He looks mortified. They abandon the shopping and escort him back to the car, ignoring everyone looking on with curious stares.

It’s a long, silent drive home.

*

Dean can’t even look at Cas when they get back. He retreats to the bedroom and just sits there, head in his hands. He’s so ashamed of himself. Cas was hurting, Cas needed him, and he fucked it up. Charlie had to leap in and save the day – nothing against her. I mean, Jesus, thank fuck she was there.

If Dean’d just frozen in panic that would have been one thing, but no. He fucking made it worse. And what if it’s not the first time. What if Sam’s right, and all the little allowances and things Dean’s been doing have just been making things worse. What if letting him eat junk food and beer is fucking him up, what if not pushing him to open up is making it all fester inside and get worse. What if, what if, what if.

He doesn’t even hear the door open, Cas’s socked feet padding towards him. He looks up at the soft thud of the cane, nearly chokes on the apology that’s welling up between his teeth but which he can’t even force out. Cas looks so worn, so goddamn tired.

*

Dean looks like shit, which coming from Cas is saying something. He sets all kind of new low bars, but somehow Dean manages to kick himself on down there. He’s sat morosely, propped up by the headboard of the bed and looking like some kind of ridiculous hybrid of roughed up model and abandoned puppy.

Cas wants to tell him that it’s okay, that it wasn’t his fault and all that jazz. He knows that won’t work, though. Dean’s too deep in self-loathing to believe that any kind words Cas gives him are more than that, empty words to salve over some slight he’s committed. He can’t reassure him, can’t convince him this wasn’t his fault, but he needs to do something, pull Dean out of that headspace so that he can be reasoned with.

So he does.

He kneels on the bed and Dean looks up, confused, guarded. He doesn’t know why Cas is here, can’t connect the only possible thing that could be happening in this situation with how he’s feeling. But Cas doesn’t care, Cas just leans down and kisses him. And it’s not hesitant this time, it’s not soft or gentle. It’s demanding, it’s passionate and fierce. Every repressed and shoved down urge he’s had since he came back given licence.

Dean makes a startled noise, doesn’t respond for the longest time but then, there it is. Hesitant at first but building up quickly until he matches Cas in passion. His hands are hovering awkwardly, fists opening and closing like he’s trying to resist reaching out and touching. Cas has no such compunctions, he reaches out and grasps Dean’s face, shuddering at the touch.

He can’t believe it’s taken them this long, it feels so good, so fucking good. They were always touching, and he’s missed it, missed it almost as much as he missed Dean. Physical affection, soft touches and passionate ones. Dean’s hands settle tentatively on his waist and he’s not thinking about the pressure, he’s not feeling pins and needle sparks under his skin. He just feels Dean’s heavy, calloused hands touching him, properly, without hesitation or fear, for the first time in months.

Cas groans, and Dean understands it for the invitation it is, grips him tighter and his hands slide around Cas’s back and under his shirt and onto bare skin. And Cas isn’t thinking, caught up, lost in the moment as he feels Dean’s hands moving up his back in a gentle caress, stepping from smooth skin to plastic.

Cas flinches in pain, heart rate spiking but he tries to mask it, kisses Dean harder, hands dropping to his belt in a futile and desperate attempt to distract him.

But Dean’s pulling away, confusion slowly fading to understanding as he works out what that was under his fingertips.

“Take off your shirt.” He says, voice hoarse.

Cas shakes his head.

“Please, Cas.”

It’s too late now. He’s a goddamn moron, he thought he could hide this forever, he might have been trying to tell himself it was just until it healed, just until it was a little better, but really, he knows he never wanted Dean to see this.

He peels off the long sleeved shirt, watches Dean’s face as the relatively minor injuries on his chest are revealed.

Dean draws in a long, slow breath.

“Turn around.”

“Don’t make me.” He rasps, barely above a whisper.

“Turn around.”

“You don’t have to see this.”

Cas can see that Dean wants to yell. He’s scared, and he wants to scream at Cas but he’s holding himself in check so well.

“Just do it, Cas. Please.” His voice is hoarse, like there’s no saliva left in his mouth.

Cas turns around.

“Shit.” A single word, whispered on an exhale.

Cas turns back around, just in time to catch the look of total and utter horror on Dean’s face before he shoves a blank mask down over it.

“I didn’t know.” Dean mutters, and Cas can tell he’s not sure, that he’s trying to convince himself.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I should have realised. No,” he shakes his head. “I should have got there sooner, stopped this. Jesus fuck, Cas.”

Cas knows they need to talk about this, address it and deal with it, but he can’t. He fucking can’t. He pulls his shirt back on and lies down, facing away from Dean.

“It’s not your fault.” He says, a token reassurance that he means every fucking word of but knows won’t stick.

“I was too slow. Too fucking slow.”

“I’m alive. You got there in time.”

“I—”

“Go to sleep, Dean.” Cas cuts him off, brusque, cruel. He flinches at his own words, wants so badly to turn around and apologise, to comfort Dean. But he can’t. Can’t force his dead, tired body to move –can’t speak past the block in his throat.

The look on Dean’s face. Not anger, not righteous fury, not even self-loathing.

Horror.

Cas lies there, unable to say a word, trying to process the fact that Dean’s never going to look at him in the same way again. He can tell. They’d been making such progress, Dean had been edging towards treating him how he used to, back when he was fucking whole. But that’s gone now. He’s never going to look at Cas again and see him properly. He’s just going to see these wounds, these scars. The damage that can’t be healed.

He almost laughs to himself. Well, Cas. You wanted this. You wanted him to look at you and see you for what you are. Still you, not some fragile placeholder to be babied and mothered, waiting all the while for the real Cas to come back, the healthy Cas. That one sitting hazily somewhere in the future, whole and normal and easy.

Now he sees you for what you really are, what you’ve become and what you’re fucking staying.

And he’s horrified by it.


	44. Bad Instincts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I missed last week's update but let's face it, you were all busy enough on Thursday hahahahaha.
> 
> Should be smooth updating from here, had some tech issues (as ever) and was busy with the move but that's all ironed out now barring unexpected disaster.

It takes Dean a long time to get to sleep, surprise surprise. He lies in bed watching Cas’s back moving rapidly with his breathing — looks and sounds like he’s just run a marathon. ‘Cause he’s still awake too, of course he is.

He must be in agony.

Dean knew he’d been knocked around a little, knew he had aches and pains and injuries – but he thought most of them were superficial, that Cas’s physical torment came from his withdrawal. Figured someone would have fucking told him if Cas was butchered halfway to hell and back.

How deep must those wounds have been that they’re still raw and healing. Jesus, fuck. Yeah, Cas’s body isn’t in the best of shape right now so that’s probably slowing things down, but still.

Dean can’t believe he didn’t notice, didn’t question the constant shirt and the awkward seating positions and the hundred other goddamn things that look so obvious in retrospect.

Eventually he gives up on sleep. He gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen, the library. Wanders aimlessly, trying to let the rhythm of his steps lull him into unthinking hypnosis.

It doesn’t work. He wants – needs – a goddamn beer and he knows how that will end right now, knows exactly what kind of domino clusterfuck that’s gonna rain down on him but that almost doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know how to cope without alcohol.

He starts making himself a coffee, for something to do with his hands mostly, but of course that summons the bunker’s other resident insomniac.

“You’re up late.” She says, bouncing cheerfully into the room. Her mood abruptly drops when she gets a look at Dean, though. “Hey what’s up, you look wrecked?”

He doesn’t know what to say – Cas was clearly going to great lengths to hide his fucking secret. He can’t just spill it out to Charlie without permission.

He just shrugs.

“Take it that means you don’t wanna talk about it.”

Dean shakes his head. Doesn’t want to, shouldn’t, won’t. Spin the wheel.

Charlie frowns at him, and he braces for a lecture or an attempt to drag something out of him that he’s probably too tired and wrung out to rebuff.

Instead she sighs, pushes him out of the way and takes over making the coffee. She’s a lot better at it than he is, so he lets her.

He’s not letting her baby him. Just, she makes better drinks, that’s all.

*

Cas can feel the pressing, anxious weight before he even opens his eyes. A sense of expectation, excitement turned sour.

When he was training to be a hunter Dean told him to trust his instincts. Good advice at the time, not so much any more. These days his instincts are always screaming bloody murder at him. Trust no-one. Everyone you love is about to be destroyed. Fear everything.

Dean’s instincts are pretty sound. Cas’s are sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth and howling.

Everything feels hazy, like the world around him is moving too fast and too slow all at once. He’s in shock, maybe? That feels about right. He knows there’s something he needs to remember, something he should be upset about, or angry? He should be feeling some strong emotion, but he can’t place which one — can’t even place why.

He notices Dean’s not in the bed with him. That’s not unusual, but it sparks at the nagging feeling in his chest. There’s something, something not right. He needs to find Dean.

He’s in the kitchen and he doesn’t know how he got there. Time skips, that’s new. He should be panicking about that, but he’s not. He needs to find Dean—

There are two coffee mugs, abandoned on the table. Both still full, both steaming. Foreboding pricks at him again. There’s something wrong about this picture. Who was here, and why did they leave in a hurry?

There’s a tap on his shoulder and he turns around expecting Dean or Charlie because he’s fine, everything is fine.

And Cahor laughs at him, grabs him by the jaw and squeezes.

“You’re very brave suddenly. Don’t worry, I’ll cure you of that.”

It takes Cas a moment to process what’s happening. His brain refuses to accept it. It can’t be, he can’t have escaped. Dean promised he wouldn’t and Dean keeps his promises.

And then the panic kicks in and he howls, lashing out to try and escape. Cahor laughs, grabs him by the shoulders and squeezes and Cas can’t move, can’t think. Can barely even breathe.

“Cas!” Cahor shouts. And that’s not right, he always called him by his full name before, but Cas doesn’t even notice. He can’t think he cant...

*

Dean hears the scream, recognises it as Cas’s instantly. He sprints out of the kitchen, Charlie hot on his heels. He brutally stamps down his fear of the worst, of what could possibly be happening. He’s never heard Cas make a noise like that — equal parts agony and terror, but he can’t think about what’s causing it, he just has to get there fucking get there and help him.

The bunker’s architecture distorts sounds, and as a result they waste precious moments checking the wrong rooms – the bathroom, the war room, the living room. There’s no sign of a struggle in any, no signs that Cas has been attacked or taken as the screaming abruptly stops.

That turns Dean into overdrive. There are lots of reasons why someone might suddenly stop screaming, and he can’t think of any good ones.

Dean throws open the bedroom door and his heart nearly stops. Cas is writhing on the bed, clawing at his arms and wrists, mouth open in a silent howl. Dean bounds over, grabs his arms and restrains him so he can’t do any more damage to himself. Cas struggles against him but he can’t get free. Dean leans in close, whispers Cas’s name frantically. “Cas, Cas buddy. C’mon, whatever it is, it’s just a dream. Wake up, hey, you’re okay. I’m here.”

Cas pays no heed, wrenches his knee upwards and gets Dean square in the groin. Dean crumples and Cas takes the opportunity to free his hands, lashing out at Dean now instead of himself. He’s weaker than he used to be, but he manages to get enough hits in before Charlie neutralises him to do some damage. Blood flows freely from Dean’s nose, and one of his eyes is already starting to swell up.

“Cas? Cas?” Charlie whispers as his struggles weaken, and Dean retreats to the side of the bed, watching helplessly as she keeps talking in a low and gentle tone, as Cas relaxes and stops fighting.

*

Cas comes back to reality with some difficulty. The first thing he notices is that he’s being restrained and it terrifies him enough that he continues to try and escape. The voice he can hear is female though, which takes a little of the edge off. It’s not Cahor, at least.

“Cas. Stop struggling.” Charlie, it’s Charlie.

He forces himself to go lax, trembling with the effort. She lets go immediately and he pulls in huge, relieved gasps of air.

And then breaks into a cold sweat when he sees the state of Dean.

“What happened?” He croaks, barely able to get the words out in disconnected panic. “What did he do to you?”

Charlie and Dean share a look, heavy and foreboding.

“What did who do, Cas?” Charlie asks gently, while Dean digs his fingers into his palms so hard Cas can see his knuckles going white.

He doesn’t answer the question – didn’t hear it or didn’t understand it through the haze of panic at the sight of Dean, bloody and battered.

*

It takes Dean a moment to catch on to why Charlie’s looking at him with that kind of resigned worry. He’s attributing Cas’s bleariness to the confusion of just having woken up from a nightmare, nothing more or less sinister than that. But then the panic doesn’t clear and he gets it – Cas doesn’t feel confused at all. He had no idea he was dreaming.

Dean’s torn. Obviously he needs to let Cas know that the big bad fucking bastard didn’t escape and go to town on them – that he’s still impregnably locked up in the basement. On the other hand, he doesn’t really fancy telling Cas who the real culprit behind his mashed potato face is.

He casts around for a good lie, but his brain is stuttering, stumbling. The _What If_ machine whirring and taking up most of his processing power.

What if this is his fault? All this time and Cas has barely had a nightmare, and the only one he did have just left him unsettled, not like this. The only big setbacks he’s had have been in his waking hours – panic attacks and anxiety attacks caused by who? Fucking Dean Winchester.

Makes sense that the goddamn nightmare is Dean’s fault too, somehow.

“I – I tripped. It’s nothing. Really, we’re okay.” Later, he can be honest with Cas later, when he’s less fragile, looks less like he’s about to tip and fall off the world.

“But—”

“I think you were dreaming, Cas.” Charlie says gently, reaching over to help him up.

She puts a hand on his back to help push him up before Dean can think of a way to stop her. Cas winces, and Dean thinks shit, she’s gonna notice that.

“Shit, I forgo—“ She cuts herself off, shooting a look at Dean exactly like the one he was aiming at her until just a second ago.

She knew.

She fucking.

“You know.” He says.

“Know what?” She tries, but he can see her heart isn’t in it. She knows she’s painted into a corner.

“It’s not—” Cas starts to say, but Dean doesn’t let him finish. He just turns around, leaves the room and shuts the door.

Jesus, fuck. If it hurt him when he thought Cas hadn’t told anyone, now he’s inconsolable. He near runs down the hall, looking for Sam. ‘Cause he’s suddenly thinking about all that physio and how he’s probably definitely the only fucking person Cas didn’t tell.

The only person Cas didn’t trust to know he was hurt.

And Dean has no idea why. He thought Cas trusted him, he thought Cas had forgiven him for being too late, for going off the handle and getting too drunk and too fucked up to help. Looks like he was a whole heap of wrong on that count.

He finds Sam, dishevelled and clearly just woken from the commotion, coming out of his room. He slams him up against the wall, taking some satisfaction in the shock and tinge of fear the action brings.

“You knew about Cas’s injuries?” It’s not really a question, and no matter what answer Sam gives he’s not gonna be convinced it was otherwise. Sam can clearly tell this, ‘cause he folds without pressing.

“Yeah.”

“How long for?”

“Since the start.”

“You, FUCK.” Dean lets go, punches the wall beside Sam.

“I told him not to—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” Dean snarls.

“He asked me not to.”

And yeah, for all Dean’s been harping on about giving Cas his free fucking will this last while he can’t exactly blow a gasket at Sam for not ratting the fucker out. It’s hard, though, to keep the hypocrisy bottled.

“I told him he should tell you, I promise.”

Dean snorts. “Like that makes it better. He didn’t want to tell me so bad even you gave up trying to persuade him.”

Sam shrugs. It’s too early for this bullshit but he needs to do what damage limitation he can.

“He didn’t want to hurt you. You know that, he was just trying to protect you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Dean lashes out at the wall again.

“He needs to protect me? Jesus fuck, Sam. Don’t give me that crap. I’m the last person in this fucking bunker who needs protecting.”

He backs away, mind racing in all the wrong directions. Didn’t want to hurt Dean like fuck. That doesn’t make a lick of sense, but neither does anything else. Cas said he wanted him to stay, that he trusted him – but he didn’t, he can’t have. If Cas hadn’t told anyone, that he could have understood, y’know, Dean knows a few things about hiding his pain. But this, letting everyone in on the secret but Dean.

He can’t fucking think. He can’t think, he just needs to get out of here.

He runs to the garage before anyone can stop him, grabs the first set of keys he sees and drives, he just fucking drives.

*

He’s screaming down the highway, blasting AC/DC from the stereo and drumming his fingers against the wheel.

The open road, freedom. He’s maybe 10 miles away from the bunker, away from people he’s just gonna fuck up around and hurt. Away from Cas, who lies to his face and in return gets the gift of Dean bumbling around accidentally giving him fucking panic attacks.

And then suddenly he’s rolling to a halt, foot off the accelerator pedal.

What the fuck is he doing?

He’s running away, that’s what. Hightailing it out of dodge with no time for anyone to give any explanations, running with his wounded fucking feelings like the further away he gets the less these things hurt. Like he can outrun his own emotions, like he can outrun the spectre of Cas.

Like running away is gonna do anything to help any of them, like it’s not gonna end up with himself on a downward spiral of booze and fights. Like it’s gonna help Sam and Charlie. Like it’s gonna help Cas, who’s already struggling, who fucking asked him outright to stay and didn’t tell him to leave.

He needs to go back.

He needs to deal with this like a goddamn grownup. He needs to be there for Cas, however Cas needs him. ‘Cause Cas doesn’t trust him, that much seems obvious, but that’s okay. He’s gonna go back and he’s gonna be there for the bastard. He’s going to talk to him, properly, like a fucking adult. He’s going to ask if he’s been pushing Cas too fast, if that’s what launched him into that godawful nightmare, one so vivid he lashed out like that, and he’s going to accept whatever the answer is. He’s going to be better.

He puts his foot back on the accelerator, spins the car around until it’s facing the other way.

Until it’s facing home.


	45. Old Friends

Cas wakes up without a sense of foreboding, for once. It makes him instantly suspicious, doubly so when he sits up and looks around, realises that Dean isn’t in the room with him. With a sigh he heaves himself out of bed and goes in search.

Instead he finds Sam, brooding at the kitchen table, staring into a coffee like it’s all he has in the world.

He looks up with a start when Cas approaches.

“Cas.”

Cas doesn’t bother with pleasantries or insults.

“Where’s Dean?”

The guilty little twitch of Sam’s face confirms what Cas had suspected the moment he’d seen him nursing a distinctly cold looking coffee.

“Oh, he uh, went on a food run.”

“Sure he did.”

They lapse into silence for a long, awkward minute, and then, eventually, Sam sighs, pushes his coffee away.

“Are you okay, Cas?”

How the fuck to answer that without breaking things... Cas shrugs.

Sam laughs, “So that’s a no, then?”

Cas shrugs again, ignoring the twinge in his back.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“ _Should_ you talk about it?” Sam asks wryly.

“Probably.”

“So why not?”

“Because—” Because he wants to talk to Dean but he cant — because Dean has split, because Dean is suffering enough of Cas’s secondhand misery. Because every time he opens his big, fat mouth his tongue just hangs there limp and useless and won’t form the words.

He doesn’t want to talk about it, not really. But he thinks that maybe he needs to. It’s welling up and growing inside him and he’s not sure how much longer he can keep pushing it down.

“I—” Fuck, it shouldn’t be this hard. “I can’t, I’m sorry. Not right now. I’m not, I’m too tired to think.”

*

The bunker is quiet when Dean gets back, almost eerily so. Dean checks his watch, ass o’clock in the morning, so probably everyone’s asleep rather than murdered or kidnapped.

He steels himself to approach his and Cas’s room, and somehow ends up in the kitchen instead. He doesn’t want to disturb Cas’s sleep he tells himself.

Yeah, sure. We’ll go with that.

He doesn’t stay alone for long. A light clicks on and he hears footsteps padding down the hall. Sam’s. He’s spent enough time around those ridiculous clown feet to recognise them.

He braces himself for a whole heap of shit and insults.

*

Sam finds Dean in the kitchen, looking conflicted and flighty. And because Sam’s job is no longer outlaw monster hunter, it’s couples therapist, he doesn’t feel like he can just leave him there.

“You finished moping?” He asks, displaying all the neutral sympathy his craft demands.

“I wasn’t—” Sam shuts him off with a look. “Yeah, okay, I fucked up, what’s new?”

“You didn’t fuck up.”

“What fucking show were you watching yesterday?” Dean snaps, eases back almost apologetically. “I just – I feel like all I do is make this shit worse.”

“It’s not your fault Cas is suffering. The things that happened to him, they were brutal. He’s traumatised and hurting, of course he’s gonna revisit that from time to time. Doesn’t make it your fault.”

Dean gets a lump in his throat. The way Sam’s talking, it makes it sound like he _knows_ what happened to Cas. He feels unbalanced by Sam’s comment, mind racing suddenly. He’s painfully fucking aware that Sam knew about Cas’s injuries, but he kind of figured that was it, stuff Sam had found out by accident and then been asked to hide. Not that they’d been talking in the meantime. That there was even more that Sam knew and Dean didn’t.

He swallows down the jealously clawing at his cheeks, trying to gouge its way out.

“I, it’s been a long night.” He says.

“Yeah,” Sam says, but with a tone that suggests that this conversation isn’t over. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He grimaces. “Later in the morning.”

*

Dean doesn’t go to bed immediately, because he’s a dirty fucking coward. He makes himself a sandwich, chews on it and tries not to think about anything. It goes about as well as could be expected. He watches some TV on his phone, old familiar cartoons from when he was a kid. Not without baggage, but at least the baggage is different.

Eventually he stops kidding himself. He’s never gonna be ready for this, he’s just gotta fucking do it.

Cas is in bed, proper bed. He’s been using it much more than the sofa-bed recently as his stamina kicks up and he’s able to stay awake for longer periods of time, get to bed under his own steam. He looks mostly asleep, and it’d be so easy for Dean to just slip under the covers and pretend none of this happened. But he doesn’t. He’s growing as a person, and as far as he’s concerned, all it’s doing is making his life so much more fucking difficult. Welcome to the real world.

“You awake, buddy?” He asks, taking off his shoes and sitting on the bed, his back to Cas.

“Dean?” Cas asks groggily.

“In the flesh.”

“I thought you went out for supplies.”

“Well, I’m back now.” He feels like a coward, talking to the wall, but he knows it’s the only way he’s going to get through this.

“Huh.” Cas says, in a tone that makes Dean vividly aware that Cas knew exactly what was going on and there’s no way he can bullshit his way through this.

They don’t say anything for a moment, the tension between them growing so thick as to be almost be unbearable. It actually makes things easier for Dean, his inability to form words warring with his need to fill this hideous silence. It’s not even that his tongue won’t co-operate. It’s like he needs to force the words out from somewhere deeper, vomit them up in a painful, drawn out process.

“Look, about last night—”

“Forget it.” Cas cuts him off.

Dean stifles a laugh, like that’s ever gonna happen.

“Look, I’m the fucking king of bottling shit up, so I get not wanting to talk, but—”

“There’s nothing to discuss.”

*

And there he goes, thinks Cas, skirting around the edges of something he really fucking doesn’t want to know. Because he might be a little fucked up right now, but Cas isn’t stupid. He saw the look on Dean’s face when he saw the wounds, has heard every little comment where Dean talks about Cas’s state like this is just a phase, just a period they have to suffer through until the real Cas comes back. The easy, lovable Cas. Not this bitter, prickly, damaged placeholder.

Dean doesn’t want to know what made this the real version of Cas – he shouldn’t know. There’s still enough left of the old version of himself to want to protect Dean from that.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Dean.”

“It’s not—”

“No!” He snaps, tired and frustrated and angry at himself and taking it out on Dean, who’s only trying to help but needs to stop before he digs too far. Into the crumbling mess that’s left of Cas. Before he realises that he’s just a pile of ash and spite assembled in the approximate shape of a human being. A push or two away from collapsing, from Dean realising that there is no fixing him.

Cas feels backed into a corner, scared and flighty, so when Dean reaches out to touch his arm he flinches away. “Don’t touch me!” He snaps, immediately regrets it as Dean leaps off the bed like a scalded cat.

Cas calls after him, but it’s too late, he’s already out of the door.

*

Well, Dean thinks to himself, there’s your answer. He’s shaking with guilt and rejection, and something else. Something much nastier. Jealousy – and he knows that makes him the lowest of the low, but he can’t help it. He’s supposed to be the person Cas is closest to, the main person who supports him through all of this trauma. He’s supposed to be his partner. He’s not supposed to be the only person who Cas _doesn’t_ talk to, doesn’t trust to see the full extent of his hurt.

Doesn’t trust to know about the _things_ gouged into his back.

He doesn’t understand why it’s just him.

What did he do wrong?

There’s a cruel, twisted part of him that wants to march back into that fucking room and shout, yeah, well, fuck you – your new best friend didn’t even want to keep looking for you. He gave up on you, thought you’d fucking turned on us. Has he told you that?

Jesus, but he’s a bastard. He knows that Cas needs someone to talk to, but he can’t even let him have that, wants to run in there and tear that away from him too. He’s like the worst kind of abuser, trying to stake Cas off in a corner where he only has Dean to rely on.

Except he isn’t even doing that, he’s somehow managing to drive Cas away from himself too. That flinch, that goddamn reaction. That’s not the kind of thing that just casually pops up one day out of the blue. That’s the final goddamn straw for someone who’s been suffering for months. How many times has he made to touch Cas, actually touched him and not noticed the warning signs? Not noticed that he wasn’t ready, that the last thing he needed was Dean’s stupid fucking hands all over him.

He finds himself at the fridge with a bottle of beer in his hand before he even realises. In theory nothing wrong with that, but he knows, as he looks at it shakily, that it’s a bad idea with the state he’s in. One will turn to three, to four to too many until he’s drowning his sorrows in that old familiar way.

And so what if he fucking does. What’s one more shitty decision to add to today’s clusterfuck?

He puts the bottle back, turns away from the fridge and heads to one of the empty bedrooms, feels around under the mattress until his fingers close on cool glass.

He pulls out the bottle of Jack Daniels, breaks the seal and takes a long, hard gulp.

It burns as it goes down, and he shudders with a mixture of shame and relief.

He’d missed this. He’d fucking missed this.


	46. Staunch the Wound

Cahor is in a meditative state so deep that it takes him a moment to register the sound of footsteps. Not that unusual, really. They come to check the defences regularly enough, paranoia leaking out of every orifice. Unnecessary, too. The Morningstar himself would have trouble wiggling out of these bonds.

The door opens after an unusually short amount of time. If it is someone checking the wards, they’re doing a haphazard job of it. Which wouldn’t make sense – it’s only paranoia that drives them down here, paranoia and slipshod checking don’t tend to go hand in hand.

Dean Winchester stumbles into the room, and for a second Cahor thinks that he’s injured, that the bunker is under attack and Dean has come down here to finish him off before he can be rescued – but no. Dean stumbles forward, avoiding the wards and stepping over the pipe of holy fire, collapses into the chair in front of Cahor’s table. His eyes are bloodshot and he stinks of whiskey. Drunk, not injured then.

Cahor looks at him, long and hard, the human slumped in front of him. The Michaelsword. He once thought of this man as the grand hope of revelation. A pure and holy man born to fulfil the will of heaven.

Now he knows him for what he is. Not righteous, not pure. The shell casing around a bullet. Important, sure, but only as a way to contain true power. A way to contain the majesty of Michael on earth.

A traitorous, uppity little monkey who thought he had the right to pervert the will of heaven. Who ruined _everything._

Someone who has no idea of the hell he’s yet to suffer through.

Dean slams his mostly empty whiskey bottle down on the desk and underneath it Cahor’s fingers twitch. He thought Dean was going to continue to ignore him forever, and now he comes down drunk and upset and malleable. Cahor couldn’t have wished for a better opportunity.

There’s a silent moment where they just stare at each other, Cahor’s gaze steady while Dean’s darts around his face, unsure where to settle. He looks like he wants to look away, like he’s holding himself here when all he wants to do is flee.

Eventually he takes a long, slow pull of his drink, sighs.

“Tell me.” He says, so quiet Cahor can barely hear it.

“Tell you what?”

Dean’s grip on the bottle tightens, so hard it’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter.

“Tell me what you did to him.” He says, anger starting to seep in. He’s using it like a crutch, to pull him through, give himself courage.

“If you insist.” Cahor says, smothering a grin. “What would you like to hear first, Dean?”

“Just... start from the beginning.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to jump straight to the good part, the fun we had traveling across the country. I planned the route specially, took Castiel to all the places that held meaning for him and ruined them, rewrote his memories so that everything he’d ever loved was tainted. The fun we had, before he got too frail. It’s a shame, he was so strung out and desperate, he’d have done anything I asked, _did_ do anything I ask—”

“SHUT UP!” Dean slams his hands against the table, like he thinks he cuts an intimidating figure. And then he seems to fold in on himself. “Jus’ – just tell me what you did to Cas.” He slurs out, softly this time. Uncertainly.

Cahor hesitates. He has to play this oh so carefully. Dean’s a drunk, flighty mess – mood swinging wildly with every sentence. It’s what makes this opportunity so perfect, and so difficult. He can’t push him too far, waste this god-gifted chance to taint Dean’s head with doubt and self-hatred.

“I set a trap for him, lured him to a warehouse with reports of angel murders. I knew that even though he’d betrayed his own kind and thrown his lot in with you he still retained some affection for his former brothers and sisters, enough that I could use against him. He fought well, but there were enough of us that we eventually overcame him. He killed many good angels that day, but I knew that it would be worth it to get revenge upon _you_ , Dean.” A little pause for emphasis there, just to make sure the message slips in amongst the drunken fervour. Sure, it was Castiel I was hurting, but I was doing it to get to you. This is your fault.

“He thought he was going to die. I could see it in his eyes when we subdued him, still darting around, still looking for some way to escape. He never gave up, I’ll give him that.

“I knocked him out the human way.” Cahor smiles, relishing the memory. “It was immensely satisfying – so very tempting to just keep going.”

Dean says nothing, the alcohol is helping to numb him, but he knows if he opens his mouth the urge to tell Cahor to stop will be overwhelming – and he needs to know this. Deserves to know what Cas suffered through because of his failures.

“He was uncertain when he woke up. I think he expected to die like an angel, snuffed out into nothing, so the fact that he had eyes to open was a surprise. I could see him trying to figure out whether it was heaven or hell – saw the look dawning on his face when he saw me and realised it was neither.

“It was a lot harder to break him than I expected. He withstood so many beatings, so many _violations._ I could just have held him down and given him the heroin, obviously, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted him to beg me for his own downfall. I wanted to take the pride that led him to defy the will of heaven and destroy it. I didn’t want the drugs to break him, _I_ wanted to break him, wanted him to break himself at my behest.

“And then I remembered, he thinks he’s the hero – what’s your little phrase, hunting things, saving people? So I had my angels round up a collection of humans and I started to hurt _them_ instead. I couldn’t make him beg for himself, but I could make him beg for them, and he did beg, pitifully.”

There’s an expression on Dean’s face that Cahor doesn’t like. He’d say it was pride for the angelic mongrel if he didn’t know better. Typical.

“As he debased himself so thoroughly I agreed to do what he’d asked, to let the humans go. I even threw in a parting gift. Some opiates – heroin if you’re being picky - to ease the pain I’d caused them all. They were so ungrateful, as humans are wont to be. Mithering and complaining about recovery from debilitating addictions, mandatory drug tests, custody of infants, ultimatums from partners. Whinging, ungrateful human nonsense.

“I was so upset at their ingratitude I nearly changed my mind, but you know Castiel, always desperate to throw himself in the path of any oncoming bullet. Almost like he wants to die.” Another little pause, let that thought hang for a moment.

“He looked me dead in the eye and said to do it to him instead, and so I handed him the first syringe, watched him plunge it into his arm.

“So you see, I didn’t do anything that he didn’t want, he asked for it, I just provided the means.” Cahor pauses, tilts his head and smiles.

“Did you know that some people become addicted from the first shot? Maybe Castiel was one of those people, but we’ll never know. It’s my fault, really – he just looked so blissful that it felt cruel to allow him to come back from that. So I gave him some more, and some more, and some more.

“The problem with heroin, though, is that it runs out. And after a week my supply ran dry and poor Castiel had to face the real world again. He was in a very…unpleasant way when he came around, paying the price for that hedonism. I’ve never heard anyone scream so loud – we had to move to a new location earlier than planned.

“And yet, somehow, despite the fact that he seemed to be suffering so much, he still had the wits about him to try and escape. He came so close as well, if only you and Sam had been following the trail _properly_ you might have been close enough to help him. But as it was, he was on his own, out of his mind with pain and hunger and in a place he didn’t recognise.

“I caught him, and I’m afraid my temper got the better of me. I beat him until he was a bloody pulp – enough to ensure that no further escape attempts were made, I thought– and then dragged him back.

“He was so well behaved for the next little while, did everything I asked. Which should have been enough to make me suspicious, I admit. Naïvely I just thought that it was the withdrawal, making him grovel to me in order to feed his addiction.

“He seemed so pliant when I finally succumbed, tied a belt around his arm and turned my back to fetch the syringe.

“Of course, he couldn’t carve the sigil quickly enough, but the cuts in his arm gave me an idea. I decided to give your fallen angel his wings back—”

Cahor is still talking but Dean can’t hear it, fear and rage and hate and booze coalescing and churning through him, drowning everything else out. He can’t think through the fury, he just acts. He lunges at Cahor, fists connecting with a crunch that’s so fucking satisfying and so not enough.

His throat is hoarse and his fists are bloody by the time rough hands and frantic voices intervene. He struggles against them, the need to destroy nowhere near worn out. He can hear voices in the background, garbled like they’re coming through an old, fucked up speaker.

Cold water drenches his head and chest and the shock is enough to bring him back into the room. Charlie standing in front of him, holding an empty basin, Sam’s arms wrapped around him in a grip so tight he can barely breathe.

“Dean?” Charlie asks, wary – like she thinks this might be a bluff.

“Yeah,” he slurs, “I’m calm.” A lie, he’s still roiling inside, still furious, but at least he’s back in he room. At least he’s the one in control. He reflexively glances down at the scar where the Mark of Cain used to be, feels like he should see it pulsing there – but no. That was all him. No ancient fucking evil he can blame it on this time.

“Temper, temper, Dean.” Cahor says spraying blood on the table. His face is pulped, but he’s an angel, and even with his powers suppressed that won’t really slow him down. It’ll just hurt which, well, Dean should probably find it satisfying but he doesn’t. His rage flares and he can feel Sam wince against his back.

“Woah, woah. Okay, I think we need to take this upstairs. Charlie can you check the wards?”

*

The noise doesn’t wake Cas. He’d been awake for hours, alternately staring at the ceiling and the inside of his eyeballs. It does get his attention, though. Muffled yelling followed by silence, and then the sound of someone being half carried, half dragged down the hall.

His first thought is they’re under attack, which, well – that’s always his first thought. This isn’t new paranoia, it’s long learned.

He fumbles his way out of bed and grabs one of Dean’s guns. His hand are shaking too badly to aim properly, but he’d rather it than nothing.

He creeps along the corridor, leaning heavily on the wall, doing his best to remain silent but not doing an amazing job.

It doesn’t matter, though, no-ones paying enough attention to notice him anyway. He draws near to the living room, can see Sam with his back to the door and Dean pacing back and forth – his hands split and bloody, flecks of it on his face and jacket.

Cas tenses – there’s been a fight and he’s missed it – is about to enter the room and demand to know what’s going on, and then Sam slams his hand on the table and Dean whips to face him, bites out an angry, “What?!”

“What me? What the FUCK were you thinking down there.”

“I was thinking someone needed to keep an eye on him.”

“Bullshit! I saw the broken bottle. Whiskey, Dean? Really?”

“Fuck you.”

“You were drinking and you wanted to wallow in your fucking misery so you went down there to punish yourself. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Fuck you.”

“Did you even think about the danger? He could have _killed_ you.”

Cas backs away, back to his and Dean’s room. His head is spinning and he doesn’t now how much is from the exertion and how much is from what he just heard. He knows enough to piece together what happened – can see the facts reaching out in front of him like stepping stones to a distant shore. Dean found out about one tiny, tiny fucking part of what happened to Cas while he was kidnapped and he drunk himself into a fury and exposed himself to Cahor – attacked him, judging by all the blood.

The lightheadedness gives way to certainty.

Dean can never know the whole truth. If this is what just a little bit does to him, makes him throw himself drunk and angry into a situation that should have ended with him dead and that, that fucking animal on the loose. Well, he can never know the rest.

*

Cahor allows Charlie to fuss over him with no resistance. She tries not to make eye-contact, clearly disturbed by the beaten state of his face, blood dripping slowly from his nose and landing on the table.

She doesn’t even offer him a cloth, or a bandage. Impolite.

Eventually she finishes her fussing, decides he isn’t a threat and leaves.

He waits until he’s sure she’s gone, carefully takes out the long shard of broken whiskey bottle that he’d been hiding under his leg, smiles a grotesque, red-toothed smile.

Everything is coming along perfectly.


	47. A Fistful of Salt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I missed last Thursdays chapter. It was ready, I just thought ah, they won't want it. They'll be too busy reblogging bittersweet gifsets and reading and writing long, indulgent meta. GOT THAT WRONG lol. 
> 
> This Thursday's chapter is half done and depending on how draining work is I might have to skip it too, but I'll do my best.

Dean has some time to think while he’s nursing his absolutely phenomenal hangover, and he settles on a plan. A nice simple one. Cas wants him to stick around, he said that, and he’s not unsaid it yet, so as far as Dean is concerned it still stands — Dean stays.

But maybe Dean’s been reading into things a little more than he should have been. Cas wants Dean around, but he doesn’t trust him to even know about his injuries. Cas wants Dean around, but he’d rather talk to anyone but him. Cas wants Dean around, but just the thought of being touched by him was enough to make him lash out and scream.

Dean doesn’t understand, it doesn’t make any fucking sense. They were doing okay, he thought. Maybe that’s just what he wanted to see, though. Maybe he was so pigheaded and desperate to have Cas back that he ignored his boundaries, pushed him too far and didn’t notice until he snapped.

Maybe this is a temporary setback while Cas straightens his head out, gets used to being safe again. Maybe this is it for good and things are never gonna go back to the way they were and they both need to stop fighting it.

Dean’s gonna cross his fingers and hope it’s the former. And if it’s the latter, well. Well what, he doesn’t know.

What he does know is that for now, physically at least, he’s gonna slip neatly back into place as Cas’s friend. Elbow bumps and pats on the back and the kind of casual touches he’s seen Cas share with Sam and Charlie without flipping out.

*

Sam clambers his way out of the front seat of the car and grabs a few bags of shopping from the trunk. He’s had to drive one of the old classic cars, built for a classically sized man – which he is very much not – and therefore he is already in a bad mood before he trips over a plant and falls face first outside the front door of the bunker.

Now, it would be fair to describe his mood as furious. He aims a kick at one of the plants – this is not the first time he’s tripped over one of the fucking things since they were unceremoniously abandoned here, but he’s feeling spicy enough to make sure it’s the last.

He stomps into the kitchen where Cas is sat, idly flicking through the newspaper. Dean’s there too, making notes in a cookbook. Neither of them are talking, there’s a tension in the air – has been for days, like a fight about to start or end. Sam is very aware of it, but he powers through anyway.

“Are you ever going to plant those things?”

“Plant what?” Cas asks, not looking up, which is a shame, because Sam has his best _are you a fucking moron_ face on.

“Plant the _plants._ The ones sat at the front door.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten.”

“No shit.”

“I’ll do it now,” Cas says, finally looking up and realising that whatever Sam has up his ass about this will only be calmed by doing what he wants.

“Good.”

“How’s the weather?”

“Not raining.”

Not the most helpful of replies, Cas snarks internally, but I guess to someone who spends a good portion of their time digging up bodies to salt and burn anything that isn’t torrential rain counts as good gardening weather.

He gets up, and so does Dean. Dean who has been somewhat of a shadow in recent days. Always at Cas’s side, never saying anything much. Still raw, Cas assumes, from recent events.

Not an easy situation for either of them, this charged and difficult silence, but Cas can’t bring himself to say anything. He knows he needs to apologise, for lying – by omission perhaps, but still a lie – for lashing out at Dean when all he was attempting to do was offer some scant comfort. He’s fumbled through it in his head a hundred times. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t _do_ this to hurt you.

It all rings hollow, too hollow to say out loud. He doesn’t even really know what he wants to apologise for. How do you seek someone’s forgiveness for the hurt you caused them when you still don’t quite believe you were doing the wrong thing. How do you express the profound regret that it ended up this way without slipping into insincerity, or a remorse-lite apology, deftly turning the blame onto the _you_ in the situation. I’m sorry your heart was so fragile that it got broken during my clumsy attempt to shield it from hurt.

Perhaps the reason his tongue is tied is that uncertainty, that inability to gather together the words he needs to get across the fullness of his meaning. He suspects else-wise, though. He suspects it’s nothing more than simple cowardice. The fear that if he apologises to Dean for the hurt he’s caused that will open up a window for further discussion. That he’ll be forced to defend himself against Dean’s attempts to discover the details of his cross-country tour.

Which, it’s nothing you can’t already infer from my injuries and general demeanour anyway, Dean, nothing you couldn’t work out by yourself. It’s the specifics you don’t need, that would break us both. It’s the specifics I’m trying to protect you from.

_How curious, Castiel, that the noble course of action is so often the one that appeals to your cowardice._

That thought doesn’t feel like his own, feels like like a something an angel would say, one currently locked up in the basement in the physical world but present in every conversation, every thought in the less literal one.

“You don’t have to come with me” Cas says out loud to Dean, instead of I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry but I refuse to lay anything else at your feet. I’m sorry but I won’t hand you this fistful of salt for you to scrub into your wounds. I’m sorry that I keep hurting you, but what you’re asking would hurt us both a whole lot more.

I’m sorry that I have the gall to say any of that when there’s a knife in my other hand and it’s still dripping with your blood.

“You can teach me the names of all the plants.” Dean says, with an awkward shrug.

Dean Winchester for I love you, and I want to spend time with you, even if things are tense, even if we’re both waiting for the fight to break out.

Cas chokes down a noise, maybe this is what he needs. Time alone with Dean, with this olive branch extended.

Maybe he can at least muster up the scraps of some kind of apology. Dean deserves that, he must know he deserves that.

*

Dean loads most of the plants into a wheelbarrow. Cas makes like he’s helping and picks up a small pot of thyme. He tries to think of a joke or a pun or something, some stupid comment that will, if not lighten the mood, then at least mark an exit route from the uncomfortable silence that has settled over them again.

“It’s about thyme we got all of this planted.”

“Sure is.” Dean says, blissfully unaware of the attempted pun. Perhaps for the best.

They don’t say anything else while they’re walking, and Cas wants to scream, can feel it catching in his throat like a cough, building and building the more he suppresses it. He holds it in though, he’s gotten oh so good at that.

*

“So,” Dean says, sounding painfully, suspiciously normal. “If you want to put all the plants on the ground where you want me to dig ‘em in, I’ll go back to the bunker and grab the tools and crap.”

“Sure.”

He turns and walks away and Cas sucks in a few deep breaths. When Dean comes back he’ll say something. He has to. He’s close to hyperventilation by the time that happens.

“I get that having a portable wheelbarrow garden might be cool, but could you not have told me that was the plan before I spent days weeding and prepping the ground, man?” Dean jokes, when he returns to see all the plants still where he’d left them.

“I—” Why can’t he just say something?

“What’s up, Cas?”

“The other night—” He cuts off, half expecting Dean to interrupt, but he doesn’t, he just stands there, shovel slung over one shoulder. Cas is left hanging, flailing, unable to come close to working out what he wants to say.

“I need you,” Cas chokes out, “no matter what it looks like. I need you.” Not the apology he wanted to give, but something. Maybe almost enough.

“I know.” Dean says.

“I’m sorry—”

“Got nothing to be sorry for.” Dean says it with enough conviction that anyone but Cas would’ve been fooled.

“I couldn’t, I didn’t want to, I’m sorry.” He’s babbling, fighting his own incoherence of thought as well as his inability to literally get words out of his mouth. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t apologise _for_ what he did. Maybe it’ll be enough for Dean if he chokes out some approximation of the half-sincere-but-wholly-sincere, internally inconsistent thing bubbling away in his chest. Maybe that’ll be enough for now.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” He finally manages.

Dean nods. “I know.”

Cas reaches out for Dean – needs his grounding touch, needs to grasp hold of him until his brain has stopped trying to turn itself inside out, until he can articulate what he really wants to say, the thing that will make everything better.

But Dean, Dean misunderstands.

“You okay, buddy, you need to sit down?” He slings the shovel off his shoulder and plants it in the ground in front of Cas. “Lean on that, I’ll go get you a chair. Can’t have you sitting down in mud this deep, we’ll never get you out again.”

Cas doesn’t know how to stop him so he just lets him go, just stands there, teeth gritted so hard that it feels like his jaw might shatter.

He doesn’t scream, though. He manages that.

*

They’re all in the living room. Charlie’s attempting to introduce Sam to some nerdy animated shit while Dean watches on, and Cas pretends to be interested but mostly just dozes in very unsubtle fashion.

“Look, this shit is so boring you’ve actually put Cas to sleep.” Dean grumbles, completely misses whatever Charlie throws back at him as Cas murmurs, shifts in his sleep so that he’s now lying on Dean.

Dean can feel his heart pounding, which is fucking ridiculous. He wasn’t even like this when he was a teenager, at least as far as he can remember.

And this is okay, right, because it’s not like he did anything. He was just sat here and Cas rolled onto him. He can just enjoy this, right? And it’s not like Dean can even pull away because then he’ll disturb Cas and wake him up and that might freak him out, so really the only thing he _can_ do is sit here and enjoy it.

Which would be fine, but he can’t help himself. He strokes a finger, oh so softly, down the sharp curve of Cas’s cheek. Shudders at the feeling and does it again.

Cas stirs, a little noise and something that might have been a flinch. Dean swallows sharply, gently rolls Cas off him and leaves the room.


	48. An Imperceptible Sense of Loss

Dean is half awake and lazily content. He thinks it’s still early but it’s hard to tell in the eternal gloom of the bunker. He’s been thinking about getting one of those fancy-ass alarm lamp things — the ones that wake you up gradually, like the sun rising.

It’d be a pain for someone on a hunter’s schedule, which is why he’s never bothered before. But now, it’s not like they’re gonna be doing much nocturnal crap that’d lead to him needing to sleep through the day.

He’s got it in his head now and he wants to grab his phone, start looking up where to get one, but the light might disturb Cas and he doesn’t want that, plus grabbing his phone would involve moving his arm which is comfortably draped over Cas’s side and—

Wait.

His first instinct is to yank it away but he quells that, eases it away slowly so that Cas won’t notice instead. Cas makes a small noise but doesn’t stir. Thank fuck.

What the hell was he thinking?! And well, okay, he wasn’t thinking anything, he was asleep. Is that a good enough excuse? Well kinda, ‘cause he can’t control what he does when he’s unconscious. Does that make it okay? No, not really.

It’s been hard enough keeping check of himself in the day time, when he’s in full control of his body. The amount of times he caught himself unconsciously reaching for Cas. He’s having to unlearn the instinct that tells him to touch Cas — because he wants to reassure him or just because he can, because they’re both there. Turns out that doesn’t just vanish at night when you’re sharing a bed with someone, and your idiot monkey brain just wants to hold them tight in case they up and vanish from you again.

*

Cas is having a really good dream. He won’t remember any of it when he wakes up, just that he felt safe, happy. Free from worry. That something about it just felt right.

And then he’ll wake up to an empty bed and an almost imperceptible sense of quiet loss.

*

Cas is lost somewhere in the thoughtless monotony of swimming laps when he hears a knock at the door, followed by Dean’s voice.

“Can I come in?”

For a moment Cas panics, and then he snorts. He doesn’t have anything physical left to hide, Dean’s seen it all.

“Come in.”

Dean does, studiously avoiding looking at Cas ,even as he starts to talk to him.

“I know you don’t like people disturbing you when you’re exercising, but there’s a leak somewhere—” He cuts off as Cas starts to laugh. Too loud, a little hysterical. “What?”

Cas stops abruptly. “It doesn’t matter,” he starts, changes his mind. “I have nothing to hide from you anymore.”

Dean looks at him now, pins him square in a frown that says _we both know that isn’t true._ He sighs, looks away from Cas, resumes talking to his own feet.

“Sam said you’d really taken to swimming.”

“Mm. Less a love affair more a tactic to avoid being told off for avoiding my exercise regime.”

Dean snorts. “Does that work?”

“No telling off, plenty of sad, disappointed sighs. They’re a little easier to tune out.”

Dean waves a hand dismissively. “You just need more practice. I’ve spent so long mastering the art of ignoring Sam’s whines that every word he says is just background noise to me now. I actually have to actively tune in to get a word of what he’s saying.”

They both laugh, and then there’s a slightly awkward silence in which Dean remembers he came into the room for a reason, and that reason was not to banter.

He starts fiddling near the filter as Cas treads water, watching him.

That interaction felt normal, almost, at the end. For a minute he was able to forget the tension between them, the argument he’s waiting for Dean to start. The why me, why _only_ me?

They’d probably have already had it, if he though he could trust Cas to be yelled at, if he didn’t think it would shatter him.

Does he want Dean to yell at him? Yes, no. Maybe. He’s fumbled his way a little closer to internal coherence than he was before, out in the garden, but clearly still not quite enough.

“Why aren’t you mad at me?” He asks, too softly to be heard.

Dean looks up, doesn’t say anything. Cas can’t quite read his expression.

Maybe he heard, maybe he didn’t.

Dean looks down again, and Cas goes back to swimming laps. There’s a metaphor fighting to be acknowledged there, something about going back and forth – but he refuses to pursue it. Can’t some things just be their own fucking selves? Why does everything want to be something it isn’t?

He comes up to breathe, resting in the shallow end, and Dean is no longer there.

*

Charlie’s so surprised when her phone starts ringing that she nearly drops it. She can’t remember the last time someone called her. She checks the number – not one in her contacts or that she recognises on sight. Her first instinct is to ignore it, so that’s what she does. It rings out, and then immediately starts calling again. With an annoyed sigh, she picks it up.

“Charlie’s phone. Who is this?”

“You live with Dean Winchester?”

“Uh, yeah.” Her brain has stuttered to a halt. He said he wasn’t going anywhere dangerous. He said he was going to scope out a church he might take Cas to.

“You need to come pick him up. We tried to call him a taxi but he won’t tell us where he lives.”

“Sorry, uh, who are you?”

“Right, sorry. Black Cat bar, Lawrence. You need the address?”

“Don’t worry, I can look it up. Is he causing any trouble?”

“No, he’s wasted but he seems more a danger to himself than anyone else. He didn’t get aggressive when I cut him off. Just seemed sad.”

“Gotcha. Well, I’ll have him out of your hands soon enough.”

“Great, thanks.”

The call cuts off and Charlie scrambles for a set of keys, brain whirring. What the FUCK is going on?

*

Dean is, as promised, absolutely wasted. His eyes are bloodshot and he can barely walk. He’s also being very slippery about why the fuck he lied to them so he could drive out to some random fucking bar and get hammered. He maintains he went to the church first, although he can’t remember what it was called or where it was.

There’s almost no point trying to talk to him until he’s sobered up, but she makes an attempt anyway on the drive back.

”What were you doing there, Dean?”

”Where?”

“At the bar, why were you at the bar.”

”S’good bar.”

”Were you at the bar because it’s a good bar?”

”Needed a drink.”

She fights the urge to say _no shit._

”What made you need a drink?”

He ignores her question, answers a different one instead.

”An’ if I do it here, no danger.”

“No danger of what, Dean?”

”No danger.” He repeats to himself, nodding.

He’s quiet for a while, and then, “you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad, I’m worried.”

”Know I shouldn’t.”

”Then why did you?”

”It’s hard.”

”It’s hard not to drink?”

He flails his hands, aiming for dismissively but just coming over uncoordinatedly drunk. “No’ that.”

”What then?”

”Made a promise,” he stumbles over the word, “in my head.”

”A secret promise?”

”Mm.”

”Is that what’s hard?”

He nods.

”Can you tell me?”

“Can’t do it.”

”Can’t tell me?”

He repeats himself.

”What can’t you do, Dean?”

”It.” He says, with the infuriating logic of a drunk person. Charlie rubs the bridge of her nose.

”So you made a promise, and it’s hard, and that’s why you came here to get drunk?”

”Miss him.”

A drunk segue, or the entire front and back of the issue? Charlie has her suspicions, but, but but.

“You miss Cas?”

”Mm.” She can see him doodling something in the condensation on the window out of the corner of her eye, senses he isn’t really listening.

”You’ll see him soon, we’re not far from home.” 

“See who?”

She gives up, and they spend the rest of the drive in silence.

*

”You got pretty fucked up yesterday.” Charlie says pointedly, the minute Dean surfaces.

”That explains the headache.” Dean scowls at her, making a line for the kitchen and some motherfucking coffee. 

”That all you want to say?” She’s following him, why is she following him.

”Yeah.”

”Sometimes I wish I could strangle you.”

”Join the queue.”

”You gonna tell me why you were at the bar?”

He shrugs. “Don’t remember.”

”You don’t remember.”

”I was pretty fucking drunk.”

”No-one ever gets so drunk they forget starting to drink.”

”Who says I started in the bar.”

”Right, so you got into the communion wine at the church you definitely went to and then thought well, might as well keep going.” 

“Something like that.”

She makes a noise of frustration, which he ignores. The yelled, “I hope you enjoy your hangover,” is slightly harder to tune out, and he grimaces in pain as she follows it with a slammed door.

*

“This is absolute garbage.” Dean says, for what is neither the first, third, or even fifth time as they attempt to trudge their way through an episode of some bottom of the barrel Netflix documentary.

“Yeah, you’ve made that pretty clear, the problem is no-one can think of anything else to watch. Either put up or shut up.” Charlie snaps.

“Alright, gimme the fucking remote.”

Charlie throws it in Dean’s direction, but Cas intercepts it.

“Does this mean I get to choose what we watch now?”

“Sure, but be prepared for Sir Whingealot to whine incessantly over whatever it is.”

Cas makes an annoyed noise and holds the remote out for Dean to take. Dean leans forwards to grab it – and as he does their fingers brush ever so slightly, and it’s like his brain has been short circuited. All Dean wants to do is grab that hand and squeeze it tight, feel the tiny little shockwaves of bliss streaking up his arm. He wants to grab Cas, pull him close, fold him into his arms and never let him go. He wants to kiss him, bite his neck and he wants to—

Stop. He needs this to stop.

He can’t take this anymore, it's too much, it's too fucking much. 


	49. Math With Extra Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE GAP. The 11th of December was the busiest day of my working year and I had to write so much copy leading up to it that my creative brain was dead. Unfortunately that happened to coincide with the point in the story where I realised one chapter needed to be three so I had to write them all from scratch. Shouldn't happen again, no promises though because I suck.

Cas is reading, but he’s not doing a very good job of it. The words won’t stick, and anyway, he can’t keep his eyes disciplined enough to handle the sentences in the right order. They’re darting all over the place, taking in a confused forwards and backwards jumble of something that only brushes at the edge of making sense.

He tries covering the bottom of the page with his hand, but that just reduces the range of the erratic convulsions, doesn’t thwart them entirely. He’s this close to getting a piece of paper and using it to uncover the page one line at a time, when Charlie interrupts him.

“How many times have you read that page?”

“Depends on your metrics. I haven’t technically managed to read the whole page yet, but I’ve read the first and last lines about 6 times each.”

“Have you thought about trying to do something else?”

“I can’t let the book win.”

“The book is an inanimate object—”

 _You’re an inanimate object_ , Cas’s brain helpfully blurts out, a quote, he can tell by the unfamiliar voice his mind supplies it in, but he doesn’t know where from. Jesus, he’s so fried he can’t even pay attention to this conversation, how was he going to manage an entire book?

“—Just put it down, Cas.”

He sighs, does so.

“Now what?”

“Whatever you want to do.”

“No. You made me stop reading, you have to be the one to supply the replacement activity.”

Charlie laughs, “Alright, TV?”

“I started reading because I was bored of the TV.”

“Game?”

“No.”

“Walk?”

“No.”

She continues to rattle of a half dozen suggestions, all of which Cas vetoes. Mostly just to be a dick about it.

“Jesus, I don’t know, do a jigsaw, play cards, stand on our heads, play pool, find Sam and—”

“I could play pool.”

“Thank god, because I was winging that sentence and I’ve no idea what was coming next.”

“Well now I don’t want to play pool anymore.”

“Shut up, we’re playing pool. You do know how to play, right?”

Cas laughs

“What’s so funny?”

“You think someone could possibly spend this long hanging out with Dean Winchester and not know how to play pool?”

“Point.”

It takes them a while to actually locate the pool table. They know it’s there because Cas remembers the absolute unholy fuss Dean made about it, the where is somewhat harder, though. Eventually they have to ask Sam, who points them to one of the unused bedrooms, muttering something disparaging about Dean and spirit levels.

“You think he chose this spot because it’s the only flat place in the bunker?” Charlie asks as they open the door.

“I think as likely it’s the opposite. I’ve never seen him play a game of pool that isn’t a hustle, I imagine he’s learned the slope exactly and uses it to his advantage in every game.”

Charlie laughs, doesn’t disagree.

“So, we playing for stakes?”

“Dignity?” They both laugh at that. “How about we play for an IOU?”

“No thanks,” Cas says, with a dry tone that might be perceived to have a hint of bitterness to it, “while I haven’t had any uncontrolled hand spasms for weeks, I have no desire to provoke the universe so.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm. It finds enough opportunities to fuck me over without me presenting them, neatly packaged. Some residual distaste for my crimes against destiny, I assume.”

Charlie fixes him with an unimpressed look, on the edge of affront. “Are you suggesting that an IOU to me is such a burden that it could only be a punishment from the universe?”

“I know what you’ll use it to ask about, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Charlie shrugs, he’s not wrong about her motives. She wanted to spend time with Cas, she also wanted space to see if she could persuade him to talk about the static discomfort he and Dean seem to generate whenever they look at each other. An IOU would have been a nice thing to have tucked in her back pocket should she feel the issue needed forcing a little further down the line.

“Okay, we play for bragging rights then, I guess.”

Cas nods, begins setting up the balls. There’s no triangle to be found so there’s a degree of fumbling, but like all things he sets his mind to (ha), he conquers it eventually.

“Flip a coin for the break?”

Charlie squints at the table.

“Um yeah, but you’ve set it up wrong.”

Cas considers. “I don’t think I have.”

“You’re missing like 6 balls? And why are there only two reds?”

Cas blinks at her for a moment, and then an angelic memory wisps hazily to the forefront of his consciousness. They have a habit of doing that. Not quite happy with the clumsy attempt at perception by his feeble little human brain, registering their protest with a nebulous lack of clarity.

“Pool. You said let’s play pool.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re describing snooker.”

“What the fuck is a snooker?”

“A game similar to pool, where you pocket a number of red balls, followed by the coloured balls in a specific order.”

“That’s pool.”

“I can promise you; it is not.”

“So what, I’ve had the wrong version of this game in my head all this time?”

“Seems that way. I’m impressed. You’ve known Sam and Dean for how many years, and this has never come up?”

“I haven’t played since like high school.”

The _I’ve no interest in this game and only suggested it to distract you from whatever was eating you up_ hangs in the air between them. Cas mulls over whether to take offence and abandon the entire charade, decides no, might as well carry on.

“We don’t have the correct balls for snooker, but pool is simple enough, if you want me to explain it to you?”

“Go for it.”

“There are two sets of balls, solids and stripes. The first person to pot a ball of either set has to carry on potting that set, and the other person gets the other set. You can only pot the black after all of your set is off the table.”

“That’s way simpler than snooger.”

He doesn’t correct her; thinks she’s doing it on purpose and won’t give her the satisfaction.

“What happens if I pocket the black one when some of my other balls are still on the table?”

“I win.”

“Well that’s dumb, not even like penalty to Cas, just straight up lol fuck you, you lose.”

Cas shrugs the universal shrug of _I don’t make the rules I just enforce them._

They flip a coin for the break, which Charlie wins. She takes the shot, scattering the balls across the table, and then passes to Cas.

Who promptly manages to accidentally fumble an impressive trick shot – jumping the cue ball over the ball in front of it without touching – which slightly less impressively pots the black.

“Guess I’m rusty.” He says, thinking how oh so glad the is hat Dean isn’t here to witness and mock him for this.

Which, obviously, predictably, boringly, summons him.

“Sam said you two were here, playing without me, but I didn’t believe him. That kind of betrayal, in my own bunker? No way, not from you two.”

The atmosphere does a strange flip. Both Cas and Charlie have some tension between themselves and Dean. Unresolved argument and accusations running from Charlie to Dean, from Dean to Cas.

It hums in the air for a moment, and then Charlie pierces it.

“No-one is gonna play pool against you, Dean.”

“Or snooker.” Cas adds.

“What?” Dean asks, but Cas shakes his head, a dismissal.

“She’s right, no-one wants to play against you. You’re too good, it isn’t fun.”

“One arm behind my back?”

“I’ve seen Poolhall Junkies. You can’t hustle me like that.”

“I’m sorry, _when_ did _you_ see Poolhall Junkies?”

“I don’t cease to exist the moment you walk out of a room. Occasionally I do things when you aren’t there.”

“Alright smartass, but I love that film. As if you fucking saw it without me. Betrayal after goddamn betrayal.”

“He’ll watch it with you again if you just shut the fuck up.” Charlie suggests.

Dean winks and points a finger at Cas. “I’m holding you to that.” He looks at the table. “Hate to burst your bubble here guys, but you appear to be missing a ball. Fairly important one at that.”

Cas knows from the look on Charlie’s face – and the fact that he knows her even slightly as a person – that he isn’t going to get away with this. He makes a go anyway, though.

“We’re playing European rules.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“He means he lost in one hit and he’s hiding behind his angelic knowledge of every game ever invented to weasel his way out of admitting it.”

“You remember the rules to every game in history?” Healthy scepticism from someone who’s witnessed Cas forget the name of a tree and go into a two-hour _fuck human memory_ strop.

“Some I remember, some I make up.” He admits slyly, to a laugh all around.

“Alright, how about we play winner goes out?” Dean asks, when they’ve calmed down. “You two play this round and I’ll take on whoever loses. That way you actually get a chance to play each other.”

Two shrugs, not quite of agreement, but of yeah whatever fine.

They set the balls up and Cas breaks, uneventfully, before handing over to Charlie. She lines up her shot, ignoring the fact that Dean is practically vibrating with the desire to tell her she’s doing it wrong. He’s on his best behaviour, doesn’t so much as make a noise when she doesn’t manage to pocket any.

Cas is a little luckier, or more skilled, maybe, sinks a yellow stripe. Not the ball he was attempting to pot – he doesn’t like stripes. No real reason, just some dumb, human superstitious or aesthetic niggling at play, telling him he wants to be solids.

“Nice shot, Cas.” Dean says sounding genuinely sincere.

Cas accepts it with a nod as he relinquishes the table to Charlie.

“Hey, hey. It’ still Cas’s turn.”

Two confused faces.

“Jesus, do you even know how to play?”

“Yes.” Cas.

“Ish.” Charlie.

“You get another shot if you pocket a ball.”

“That’s bullshit.” Charlie says. “You’re winning, here, have another advantage.”

Dean shrugs. “Them’s the rules.”

“How do I know you’re not just making it up to help Cas?”

“I am winning.” Cas points out. “Why would I need the help?”

“You’ve managed one ball,” Dean says with a laugh, “Hardly an overwhelming lead.” Focus back to Charlie, “Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

She acquiesces with a melodramatic sigh, like she’s being ganged up on, lets Cas take his shot.

They manage well enough for the next while, but as things thin out it becomes increasingly obvious that neither of them are, well, any good at all.

A miss followed by a miss, by a miss, by a miss – all the while Dean is getting more frustrated.

“Look, okay,” he says, clearly minutes short of tearing out his hair, “change of plan. You two are so bad I’d struggle to hustle you into thinking you’re winning, man. How about I teach you instead?”

Twin groans.

“Don’t be babies. It’ll be fun. I’m a very hands-on teacher.” A wink.

Charlie points her cue at him threateningly. “Keep it PG between you and Cas. I get so much as one _hint_ of anything nasty from either of you and you’ll find out what it feels like to get beat with one of these.”

There’s a strange flicker across Dean’s face. You’d almost call it guilty, if that didn’t make no fucking sense at all. Cas figures he’s misreading it, wonders instead if Dean already knows what it feels like to be smacked around with a pool cue.

“Shall we start again, or keep going from here?” Cas asks, to distract.

“We can keep going, but we should play a fresh game too. There’s a lot more strategy to this game than most people realise. Do you good to see how to start a match decently as well as ending it.”

A bloom of fondness in the centre of Cas’s chest. Dean doesn’t think he’s smart because he thinks intelligence is measured in grades and long, boring tomes. He doesn’t realise his wealth lies in tactics and practical applications. Pool is the perfect example. It’s a game of angles – that’s just math with extra steps.


	50. Cues

It’s Cas’s turn next, so he starts to line up his shot.

“Hey, wait, wait.” Dean interrupts. “You gotta look at the table properly – don’t just think about how the shot will affect the ball you hit, think about how it’ll leave the table afterwards. You hit that red one and it’ll clip Charlie’s yellow there, leaving her open for a perfect shot.”

He comes to stand near Cas, draws a line with his hands so Cas can see what he means. Cas does.

“So where should I go instead?”

“Either clip the corner of that purple, which should stop Charlie from being able to take another shot at all—” a shout of ‘hey!’ from Charlie, “or you could pocket the orange. Tricky shot, though.”

“Which would you do?”

“I’d pocket the orange and _then_ I’d block Charlie, because I’m way better at this than you are.”

“Screw you, Dean.” She grouches.

“Okay,” Cas nods, “Show me how.”

Cas adjusts himself as Dean talks him through the angle he needs, imagining a line coming out of his cue, lining up – and missing by an inch.

“Ooh bad luck. That’s a foul, means Charlie gets to put the cue ball wherever she wants on the table.”

“You did that on purpose.” Cas grumbles.

“I gave you great advice, you’re the one who fucked the shot.”

Cas grunts, watches mildly peeved as Dean instructs Charlie where the white needs to go, arranges her arms into the right place with gentle touches, correcting her angle so that when she hits the yellow it sinks cleanly.

She pots the next one with Dean’s guiding touch, too, tries to one after that by herself and misses.

“Thank god.” Cas says. “I didn’t think I was going to get another shot.”

He’s feeling…uneasy suddenly, and he isn’t sure why. Just a faint undercurrent, something subtle and ephemeral that he can’t quite pin down.

He dismisses it with a shake of his head. Funny, how the human body so relentlessly ties actions to thoughts. It’s not good enough for it to simply banish an idea. It has to dislodge it with a shake, like it’s a physical thing – hanging onto the folds of his brain in the same way a thief clings to a window ledge.

“Well,” Deans’ voice brings him back, “maybe if you hadn’t fucked that shot I set up for you so badly you might have managed a few more.” Dean’s teasing grin grates at Cas’s nerves and he doesn’t know why. “I can only work with what I’ve got.”

Cas nearly smacks him with the cue, instead diverts his entire attention to the table, calculating. He’s always been a tactician; he should be able to manage this.

“I should hit the green.” He states, half a question.

Dean considers. “Wouldn’t be the worst move you could make.”

“But not the best?”

“Mm, tactically it’s a good move, but you’ll need to hit it at a very specific angle. Safer to go with the purple.”

“I’m going for the green.”

“Of course you are.” Dean says, exasperation licking at the fond smile on his face. “You’ll wanna come at it form a sharp angle.” He points Cas to where he wants him to stand, watches him start to line up the shot. “Not quite, a few degrees to the right – and you wanna move your hand up a little further. Not that far. Nice, looking good. Okay, pull back, you want force but not to overdo it.”

Dean talking him through the shot helps, but not quite enough. The angle is still ever so slightly off. He does hit the ball, though, so at least he doesn’t give Charlie a bonus shot.

“You want any help with this one, or are you gonna try it alone?” Dean asks her.

“Is my pride stronger than my desire to kick Cas’s ass?” She pretends to consider. “Fuck no, get over here and help me out!”

Even Cas laughs at that, watching as Dean helps her pick her ball – she only has two left, so barely a choice – and then gently nudges her into the correct position.

The angle is perfect but she overpowers it, and as a consequence one of Cas’s balls follows hers into the pocket.

“Was that on purpose, are you taking pity on me?”

“As if.” She snorts.

“Are you gonna listen to me this time and play it safe, or are you gonna insist on playing outside of your ability and lose?” Dean asks Cas pointedly, gets a middle finger in response. “Well, if you don’t _want_ my help..”

“I don’t want your help.” Cas says, “but apparently I need it.”

“Charming. Go for the green, should be a nice easy shot.”

Cas sets up the shot, listens to Dean’s advice and changes the angle fractionally. It’s a good shot, sinks the ball easily.

He whoops, catches Dean’s eye and a moment of unguarded happiness passes between them. It’s fleeting, the uneasy feeling sliding back in far too quickly. Cas breaks eye-contact to look at the table again.

“Orange next?”

“Yep.”

With Dean’s verbal guidance he sinks that too, leaving him and Charlie level on one ball – and the black – to go.

“Now it’s getting interesting.” Dean says, rubbing his hands together.

Charlie sinks her last ball with ease thanks to Dean’s guiding hands – but he holds them up when it comes to the black.

“Nuh-uh, last ball is all yours. Use what I have taught you.” That last sentence in a tone that borders on questionable enough that Charlie shoots him a side-eye.

Cas catches up, thanks a little to Dean, a little to his own skill, but, like Charlie struggles to get the black.

“I swear to god this ball has fucking magnets in it.” Charlie moans as she fucks up the shot again.

“Voice controlled magnets. It listens to hear which pocket you’re aiming it for and that activates a forcefield.” Cas adds.

“Or, maybe, you both suck.” Dean suggests, ducking Charlie’s feinted pool cue at his head.

Eventually, as much by luck as skill, Cas sinks the ball. He’s feeling very smug, until Dean pipes up with, “Great, so that’s one all. Best of three?”

They both groan.

“Or you can call it a draw like a pair of goddamn babies.”

A glare exchanged, a resigned sigh in stereo, and the balls are once again set up on the table.

*

They end up playing two more matches, Charlie the overall winner, before they get fed up with Dean and retire to the living room. Sam barely even looks up from his book in acknowledgement.

Charlie and Cas share a glance, loaded with the suspicion that Sam sent Dean their way on purpose so he could get some peace and quiet.

Or, maybe in the hopes that them spending time together would work out some of the tension floating around.

Which, kind of. It’s at a low buzz now, and maybe between Charlie and Dean a few relaxed hours is enough to lay it to rest until something else kicks it back up.

The Big Thing that Dean and Cas need to deal with, that’s not the sort of thing that can be laid to rest that easily.

That’s a thing that needs to be talked, fought, hell, maybe even fucked out.

It’s a thing that shouldn’t be left to fester, no matter how desperate they both seem for that to happen.

*

Cas is lying in bed thinking. He’s thinking about lots of things, mostly to distract himself form the one big thing. The steadily building sense of unease throughout the evening, throughout the last few evenings – if he’s really honest with himself.

He’s trying very hard not to think about the fact that Dean isn’t in bed next to him, even though it’s 3am. He’s trying very hard not to think about the fact that he's worked out what was making him feel unsettled during the pool game.

How every time Dean wanted to correct Charlie’s positioning, he touched her. Casual, friendly touches, brother to sister. How every time Dean wanted to correct Cas’s positioning, all he was prepared to offer were words.

If he’d noticed it at the time, maybe he’d put it down to Charlie’s threatening entreaty to keep things PG. But, but but.

But a pattern.

A spade to lean on instead of the hand he’d been reaching for, a brush of fingers followed by a flinch backwards, dreams of being held but waking to find no-one there.

A pattern of someone gradually but comprehensively drawing back even the most innocent and tender of touches.

*

Cas stands beside the mirror for a long time, unable to force himself to move, to actually look at the state of himself. To see what Dean saw.

Eventually he summons up the courage – thinking how fucked up it is that someone who stood firm against an archangel is now terrified of his own reflection – and takes a step to the right.

He shudders when he meets his own eyes. They’re bloodshot, peering out from a gaunt and hollow face. He looks like he was only rescued yesterday, not months ago. Sure the bruises have faded and most of the superficial scratches are gone – but the other damage runs much deeper. He shrugs off his shirt, counts the track marks on his arms with growing despair. He gently brushes a long, half healed cut bisecting a chest that’s all bone and no muscle – still slightly tender to the touch. 

Cas thinks he understands now, why Dean has been reacting like he has. The emotional tension between them had made sense – he lied to Dean, he can’t even apologise to him properly, of course Dean would be acting weird around him.

The physical distance, on whatever subconscious level he’d noticed it, had been the more disquieting thing. It hadn’t made sense – or at least it hadn't as just a subset of everything else.

Now, now he gets it though. Dean drawing away physically has nothing to do with him being conflicted about being lied to and everything to do with the raw and bloody shock of what he saw. 

You can’t look at something like that and still want to touch it, hold it, fuck it.

Dean still loves him, that’s why he’s still here, despite all the difficulty and the tension, that’s why he’s still doing what Cas asked him to do at the start. To stay. 

But there are different ways to love someone.

Cas screws up his fist so hard that it hurts, wants desperately to lash out, to break something and rail against the unfairness of it all. He was _happy._ _They_ _were fucking happy._

And now they’re not. Now Cas is a hideous, sexless walking reminder of Dean’s perceived failure and he’s not going to get better. Sure, the wounds will scar over and his muscle tone might come back eventually, his face fill out. But the trauma, that’s there forever, and it looks like seeing him in the way that he did – the horror of it – has shattered any plausible deniability Dean had about the situation. Maybe Dean has finally realised that the Cas he loves isn’t coming back. That this is all that’s left – and maybe he’s realised that that’s not something he can love like before. It’s something he can try to look after, something he can tend to as long as he doesn’t have to touch it.

Well, that’s fine. Cas can make that real easy for him.

He moves over to the wardrobe and takes out the mismatched collection of clothes he’s acquired since returning, and proceeds to sort them. He’s ruthless – anything without sleeves, anything with a deep neck – anything that doesn’t cover as much battered flesh as possible, it all gets discarded.

He’s left with a very meagre collection, but that’s fine. It’s not like he’ll want to dress up any time in the future. Not like he can impress anyone with anything except the fact that he looks like this yet he’s somehow still walking.

Hysterical laughter claws its way up his throat and out of his mouth. He laughs and laughs and laughs until he can’t breathe, sinks down onto the bed with his head in his hands and cries until nothing else will come.


	51. Tension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic continues to be an absolute clusterfuck comedy of errors. Somehow the version of chapter 51 I have is from a fairly old draft and as such is Not Correct - something I did not notice when I uploaded it in a panic before Christmas. For now I've just removed one sentence from Dean's dialogue with Charlie that makes it work better, I'll go back and re-edit it when I have time, because yes, I have somehow lost the correct chapter.

Charlie doesn’t hear the first few knocks through her headphones. She hears the next one through a gap in the music, debates pretending she didn’t. It’s not urgent or they’d burst right the fuck in, but neither is any of the bunkers other residents calling at 2am going to be fun. They used to be fun, but then. Well. 

“Come in.” She says, bracing herself. 

It’s Sam, which okay. Potential to go either way so that’s a good start at least. This opinion lasts about as long as it takes for him to flop onto her bed and ask, “Did I do the right thing?” 

“You’re gonna have to be more specific there buddy.” 

“Persuading Dean to stay.” 

She nearly says it again, but holds her tongue. This isn’t the time for flippancy. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, a couple of weeks ago I’d have said it was the right choice, but looking at the state of them now... It’s like they’re both getting worse.” 

“Recovery isn’t straightforward, you can’t expect them to just keep getting better with no setbacks. Trust me.” 

“Yeah, I get that – but, I dunno. I don’t think they’re helping each other. They’re both so fucking self destructive and so invested in each other. Its like one of them starts spiralling and the other takes it personally and drops off too.” 

“They’re not always like that.” 

“No, but they are right now. Fuck, maybe they’d even each other out in a good way if things were normal – drag each other up instead of down. But they aren’t, things are never fucking normal. They’re bouncing from one shitstorm to another bookended with the chance to set themselves on fire to show how much the other one means to them. 

“I mean, Cas won’t talk to Dean because he wants to protect him, and then Dean finds out he’s being lied to and spirals which makes Cas think he’s right because look at how Dean’s reacting, which makes him more determined to hide things from Dean which just creates a great big cyclical time bomb of bullshit.” 

“Poetic.” She can’t resist. “So you think they’d be better off apart?” 

“Yes, no. I don’t fucking know. I think they might even be worse, somehow. Maybe they fuck each other up with good intentions, but at least they have each other to try and bounce back for.” 

Charlie wants to laugh. “So they’re fucked either way.” 

“Only if they keep being stubborn and bullshit stupid.” 

“So you think they’re fucked.” She repeats, and Sam does laugh. More a release of tension than any real mirth. 

“I guess so.” 

*

Charlie thinks about Sam’s words, he’s got a point – there’s something very fucked up about Dean and Cas at the moment. But unlike Sam, she doesn’t think it’s hopeless. 

She decides to pick off Dean first. He’s the weak link, and the one she knows better. Unfortunately he’s not been in a talkative mood for the last, hmm, forever. Every time she tries to bring it up – subtly or unsubtly, his response is the same. He either tells her to fuck off or he just gets up and leaves. Not that she’s gonna let that stop her, she’s just gonna have to get creative. 

“Tell you what, I’ll play you for your feelings.” 

“What?” 

“PS4, round of Gwent.” 

“The fuck is Gwent?” 

“Don’t pretend you don’t love watching me play Witcher.” 

Dean grunts. 

“If I win you’ll tell me what’s up, if you win—” 

“If I win you’re never allowed to talk to me again.” 

“Uh-huh. And in what world is that fair?” 

“A year.” 

“A day.” 

“6 months.” 

“A month.” 

“Deal, but only if we play a proper game, like poker.” 

“Yeah, okay, I’m gonna play poker against someone who hustles as their fucking living. Sounds likely.” 

“Yeah well I’m not playing your fucking game.” 

“What, afraid you’ll lose?” 

“I know I’ll fucking lose. Why is this such a goddamn big deal to you? Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?” 

“Because you’re moping around the place like a kicked puppy and I’m your stupid fucking friend and I want to know if you’re okay?” 

“Of course I’m fucking okay. We got Cas back, we got the bastard that took him. Everything’s fucking peachy.” 

“You’re doing a pretty bad impression of okay.” 

Dean punches the wall and she flinches away, even though the blow came nowhere near her. He notices, scowls with self-disgust. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

“It’s fine.” 

“It’s not fucking fine, though, is it? Nothing is fucking fine.” 

“So talk to me about it.” 

“I shouldn’t be like this. I should be happy.” 

“You shouldn’t be anything.” 

“I’m not the one with the goddamn problems, everything should be fucking okay for me, but fuck. I actually wish I was back on the road, can you believe that? ‘Cause at least then I could pretend that the reason I haven’t touched Cas in fucking weeks is because he’s in another state, instead of us both rattling around in here and pretending that everything’s okay when clearly it’s shot to goddamn hell.” 

“Have you talked to Cas about this?” 

Dean laughs. 

“Yeah, I think he’s got enough fucking problems of his own to deal with right now, I’m not gonna throw my pathetic fucking loneliness onto that pile as well." 

Jesus, fuck. “Your feelings are valid, too, Dean.” 

“My feelings are _nothing_. Not against what he’s been through. I can deal with this on my own. I don’t need him, or fucking you getting involved!” 

“Tough shit.” 

“Don’t say anything to him. Alright. You don’t have a fucking right, neither of us do. I don’t want him feeling like shit for something that isn’t his fault.” 

Charlie wants to bang his head against the wall, because that’s exactly what the stupid bastard is doing to himself. Instead, she takes a deep breath and pulls Dean into a hug that he doesn’t even try to resist. 

“Just think about talking to him, okay?” 

He doesn’t say anything. 

* 

Cas wakes up, not quite sure why until he feels the bed dip as Dean shifts his weight. He’s surprised, Dean hasn’t been using the bed much recently. Cas has lost track of the number of times he’s fallen asleep on the sofa, or in the library, or any of the other excuses before he stopped bothering with them altogether. A couple of nights is a coincidence, a couple of weeks is a pattern. 

And one that isn’t going to be broken tonight, Cas realises, as Dean sighs, stands up and sneaks out of the room. 

Cas curls in on himself, ignoring the dull ache in his back, as he wonders whether Dean will ever touch him again. 

* 

Dean is well aware, as he puts the key in the ignition, that they’re going to think he’s running away again. He isn’t, though, despite the late hour, the very real fact that he snuck out here so that no-one would follow him. 

He’s antsy and restless, and the urge to find a bottle of Jack or two or three is buzzing under his skin. Fuck or fight or drink. Those are his coping mechanisms, and since drinking and fucking are out of the question, that leaves fighting. 

A nice, old fashioned hunt. Something easy enough that he won’t bite it, hard enough that it quells some of the ache. 

He’s circled a few potentials in the paper – missing bodies and mutilated corpses. Gonna start with a pretty standard haunting and see how he feels from there. 

He makes it a full hour before his phone rings. 

“Y’ello.” He answers the blocked number that he’s about 90% certain is Sam’s. 

“Where the fuck are you?” Yup, Sam, and he sounds pretty pissed off. 

“Found a case, decided to hit the road.” 

“In the middle of the night?” 

“Yep.” 

“You realise _exactly_ how bullshit that sounds, right?” 

“And yet it isn’t.” 

“Jesus, Dean. Where are you?” 

“Driving up to Fairfield.” 

“Right,” Sam didn’t expect to get an answer, Dean can tell from is tone. “So you’re telling me if I get in the car and drive to Fairfield to give you some backup – because hunting alone is goddamn stupid – you’ll be there?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Fine.” Sam sighs. “Don’t get started without me.” 

“No promises.” Dean says, and hangs up. 

* 

There’s a knock on Cas’s door. He grunts, can’t be bothered to decide whether he wants to tell whoever it is to come in or out or to fuck off. Sam interprets the noise as a welcome, comes and sits on the bed. 

“So, Dean’s gone out hunting.” 

“At 3am.” Cas’s tone is flat. It’s not a question, more an accusation. 

“I think he was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic.” 

“Mm.” 

“He told me where he was, and I was thinking of heading out there, giving him some backup – if that’s okay with you?” 

“Why wouldn’t it be okay with me?” 

“No reason.” Sam says nervously, clearly not wanting to remind Cas that he’s helpless and pathetic and all the rest. “I’ll make sure he gets back safe.” 

Cas just shrugs. 

*

Cahor fingers the shard of glass in his hand, admires the bloody sheen as he holds it up to the light. Half the job done, another half to go. 

He gouges it into his arm, wiggling it around until blood starts to gush. He puts down the glass and catches what he can in a cupped palm, drop by drop, until it threatens to run over. 

He brings his palms together and whispers into his makeshift chalice. And then he waits. 

It takes a while to get a response, but he has the easy patience of someone who knows their plan is pulling together flawlessly. Of someone who knows they’ve won. 

Eventually he hears a voice. 

“Who is this? How did you even get through to me?” 

“My name is Cahor, and I have a proposition for you.” 

* 

Cas had been so consumed with angst about Dean that he’d almost forgotten the other thing he was supposed to be feeling angst about. Well, forgotten isn’t the right word. More relegated it. 

Now that he isn’t spending every moment consumed with whether Dean’s going to be able to bear to come near him today, the drugs have found space to come by turns kicking and screaming and wheedling to the forefront. 

He finds himself wandering the corridors in a daze, snapped out of it by the sound of Charlie’s fraught tone. 

He’s not making it easy on her, he knows. She keeps trying to talk to him – to get him to open up and share his problems – but he shuts her down every time. He doesn’t want to think about them, doesn’t want other people to have to think about them. 

He feels like he’s floating in limbo and maybe if he doesn’t acknowledge his problems they’ll just hang there, preserved in formaldehyde – never rotting and decaying away into something he can move past, but also not fighting him anymore, either. 

Stagnation is better than meltdown. And the drugs, they keep whispering to him, oh we’re good at that. And they are, good at capturing time and propelling him through it in a blur of satiation and hunger. When they’ve got you at least it’s simple. They’re the only thing you think about , one beautiful agony – with a simple and attainable solution – instead of all these thousand cuts with no cure. 

“What?” He asks vacantly, half aware he’s being addressed but mostly aware of the itching of the track-marks up his arm. He keeps opening up his wounds by accident, absentmindedly scratching away. 

“I asked if you were okay, but seeing as I’ve had to ask you three times I’m gonna take a wild guess that you aren’t.” Charlie says. 

Cas shrugs, too out of it to come up with a denial. 

“Is this about Dean?” She asks, and that catches what little attention Cas has left. 

“No.” He laughs, “It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s off throwing himself into harm’s way because he finds being here too uncomfortable.” 

“It’s not your fault.” 

Cas shrugs, he hadn’t said it was. He doesn’t know who’s fault it is. Maybe it’s no-one’s fault. Maybe it’s everyone’s. Every little butterfly wing ripple effect innocuous decision that led them up this stupid fucking path. 

Maybe in an alternate universe someone kicked a dog and he died in a barn, and maybe that’s okay. 


	52. What Was Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic continues to be an absolute clusterfuck comedy of errors. Somehow the version of chapter 51 I have is from a fairly old draft and as such is Not Correct - something I did not notice when I uploaded it in a panic before Christmas. For now I've just removed one sentence from Dean's dialogue with Charlie that makes it work better, I'll go back and re-edit it when I have time, because yes, I have somehow lost the correct chapter.
> 
> Also, the car scene here with Sam and Dean happens to have the award for 'scene written and somehow lost most times' in this fic, which, with this fic is somewhat impressive. I am very grateful for the loan of an iPad which enabled me to write this thing up on something other than a phone, I just wish it was an iPad that didn't delight so in erasing my work. This is what you get for leaving a fic on the burner for 5 years, it becomes sentient and starts to hate you.
> 
> Also also, my gmail has apparently been doing something weird with my emails and I haven't seen a single one from AO3 about comments for ages, but have now realised I do have them I AM VERY SORRY for ignoring you, and I am going to try and respond to them all as soon as I can.

Later he’ll blame the lack of sleep. The detached and slow state of mind where every decision feels insurmountable and it’s easier to just wander aimlessly than pick one single thing to do. 

He’ll blame a lot of things, come to the conclusion that this was probably pretty much inevitable. That of course he was going to wind up outside Cahor’s door at some point. 

“Dean, is that you?” The voice penetrates his brain fug easily, the first time something has for days. He doesn’t know where he is, doesn’t recognise this place – but that voice, oh, that voice. 

It floors him, drops him to the ground with sweaty palms and pounding heart. He can’t, he doesn’t know where he is – how he got here and it can’t be starting all over again, he can’t be back, he’s free and it’s over and. 

He manages to scramble to his feet, runs up the stairs and gets his bearings. _He’s home, he’s in the bunker. He’s safe here._

It's not enough. He feels hunted, just that voice enough to throw him back into the mindset of a cowering animal, quaking in his den while hunters footsteps and howling dogs echo around him.

No escape, only death. 

* 

Cas wakes up, stiff and sore – not much unusual about that. Slightly more unusual is that he’s slumped on the floor, between the wall and the bed with an angel blade at his feet. 

The memories from last night take a few moments to settle, but once they do they bring a rush of shame and disgust. He’s _pathetic_. All it took was the sound of Cahor's voice to send him into such an abject state of panic that he ended up here, cowering on the floor. He didn't even see Cahor - Cahor didn't even see him, didn't even say anything to him. Cahor, who is bound and tied up and harmless and somehow still so fucking terrifying that he can reduce Cas to this with just a casual few words.

Cas pushes himself up to the bed, looks at his hands. Still trembling faintly. He’s a coward. A godawful, useless coward. It’s been months and he hasn’t even looked Cahor in the eye – hasn’t even thought about what to do with him. 

He should be dead. They shouldn’t be keeping him trussed up in the basement just because they think they need Cas’s permission, or that he needs to do it himself for closure or something. 

Some chance of that, when he can’t even hear that voice without breaking down. 

But what if he could? What if he did it and the fear was gone. What if this is what’s been holding him back, the fact that even if he won’t address it he knows the creature who broke him, reduced him to some base, fragile mess is still alive, could still do it again no matter whether he recovers from the first time or not. 

What if he killed him and everything was fine? 

Could he do it? 

Not just for himself, probably. But for the others. It’s not fair to them to keep this monster here, where he can so easily break out and destroy them all – not just Cas. 

All he has to do is take that knife lying there on the floor, shining silver, walk down the corridor, down the steps, open the door, and plunge it into Cahor’s heart. 

It would be hard, he knows that. Not physically – he’ll be bound and defenceless, Dean will have seen to that. It shouldn’t be mentally hard, either. Not after everything that Cahor did. The real Cas, the old Cas would have been brimming with righteous fury. He wouldn’t have cared how weak his body was, he’d have dragged himself down here on his hands and knees on that very first day. Taken his blade and plunged it into Cahor’s chest and ended things. 

But that Cas is dead. This Cas is an echo at best. All the bravery and the fury have seeped out through the cracks and he can’t seem to get them back. 

He picks up the angel blade, grips it so tight that his fingers turn white. 

Maybe this is what he needs to do to get that back, more likely he’s permanently broken, stuck like this. But if that’s the case then at least, maybe his last action before he fades entirely will be a big fucking one. 

He pulls in a deep breath, summons up memories from when he was fearless, ruthless. From when he was an avenging angel who laid siege to hell with scant hope of success and did so gladly, ferociously. 

And he makes his way down to the basement. 

*

The hunt goes fine. A salt and burn, simple enough, even if Sam spends the whole time on edge, waiting for a chance to talk to Dean. He tries to talk to him when they’re digging the grave, he tries to talk to him in the motel they spend an extra night at, just to be sure the hunt is really done. Dean just finds an excuse to escape every time, goes to the bathroom and locks the door, puts down his shovel and says he needs to walk off a cramp. 

Sam’s determined, though. 

“How attached are you to your wheels?” Dean asks the next morning, and Sam shrugs in response. “We’ll take mine, then. No point driving both.” 

“Uh sure, but – driving where?” 

“Colorado.” 

“Colorado? What happened to a simple salt and burn and then home?”

“Change of plan. Baby’s been in storage long enough.” 

“Right. Isn’t it a little dangerous, being that far away from Cas and Charlie?” 

Dean shrugs. “They’re adults, and they’re locked inside Fort fucking Knox. How much trouble do you think they’re really gonna get into?” 

Sam shrugs, wondering if Dean has emotional whiplash from his sudden flip from cloying overbearing parent to _whatever, they – and by they, read Cas – can take care of themselves_ _._ “Sure, then.” 

* 

Sam plans his moment carefully, waits until they’re on the highway, speeding along too fast for Dean to just stop the car and bail. Corners him, effectively, which yeah dick move, but also the only goddamn thing likely to get him more than a disappearing act that leaves him stranded without a car. 

“Have you talked to Cas since we left?” He tries to start out casually, but it’s like Dean can smell the trap. Says nothing and just turns the music up. 

Sam turns it back down. 

“So, what, we’re not gonna talk for the entire drive?” 

“We can talk. Plenty of things to talk about without you sticking your nose in my business.” 

“So you haven’t talked to him?” 

“No, I fucking haven’t. Are you happy?” 

“Not really. Any reason you’re icing him out?” 

“Cas needs space, hell, I need space.” 

“You need to run away from your problems, more like.” 

“I’m not running away from anything.” 

“Could’ve fooled me, and Charlie. And Cas.” 

Dean sighs. “He wants this too, trust me.” 

“How do you know that if you don’t talk to him?” 

Dean doesn’t say anything for a while, but Sam doesn’t press him. Hopes maybe he’s chewing through it and he’ll see sense soon.

“I don’t even fucking blame him. He deserves better than me, we all know it, but for some fucking reason through every shitty thing he kept on clinging there, pretending like I wasn’t constantly letting him down. I guess it was about time he saw through me.” 

“All the shit you _think_ you’ve done, anything that mattered he’s long forgiven you for.” 

“You think he forgives me for letting him get cut up and doped to shit? So what. I don’t forgive me. And I don’t even believe he does fucking forgive me. He might say he does, he might even _think_ he does. but deep down, where it matters, he hates me for letting it happen. I can see it.” 

“That’s not—” 

“He asked me to stay, and I thought that would be the end of it. I thought okay, things will be difficult, sure. Of course they will. But we’ll get through them together. I’ll be there for him, however he needs me. And it was fine, it was fucking great. I thought it was great.” 

“What happened?”

Dean shrugs. “Maybe he never really wanted me back in the first place, maybe he just thought he did. Maybe he got tired of me constantly fucking things up. I dunno.”

“You’re not—”

“I thought he trusted me.” Dean interrupts. “And then I found out that he didn’t. Not even close.”

“That’s what this is about?” Sam asks, sensing a breakthrough.

Another shrug from Dean. Sam wants to shake him nearly as much as he wants to not die in a horrible car accident.

“It’s about a lot of things.”

“Like?”

“Like the fact that maybe having to rattle around a concrete bunker with someone who can barely even bring themself to look at you isn’t fucking easy. Maybe that’s something you could both do with some _space_ from.”

He turns the music back up, and this time, Sam doesn’t turn it down. 

* 

The next few hundred miles are tense, but if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to stand Dean down, it’s the open road. Gradually his grip on the wheel loosens, his shoulders unclench. 

Sam spends the time running over their conversation. Against himself, he’s actually inclined to believe that Dean isn’t running away – or at least, that he doesn’t think he’s running away. If he was, there’s no way he’d have let Sam tag along. 

That puts a niggling suspicion in the back of Sam’s mind, but it takes him a good few miles to pin it down. Dean didn’t need to let him come along, didn’t need to insist that they drove in the same car. He must have known that he was trapping himself, that Sam would try and force him to talk. 

Maybe, in his ham fisted, emotionally stunted way, this was Dean’s way of trying to open up. Forcing himself into a position where he’d have to unload, justify what he was doing and why. 

Hell, maybe the reason he brought Sam along was because he wanted to go back to the bunker, but didn’t quite trust himself. 

Or maybe Sam’s just reading too much into all this, and he was just feeling shitty and wanted a familiar face along for the ride. 

*

The Impala is fine, of course it is. Like Dean didn’t check and double check the company before entrusting his Baby to them. 

That doesn’t stop him from being a complete pain in the ass about it. 

“She feels a little off.” He moans, as he pulls out of the lot, having driven her for all of about 3 seconds. “And she smells fucking weird.” 

“She smells clean.” Sam points out, flicking the air freshener hanging from the mirror. 

“Yeah, well, I told them not to _touch_ her.” 

“How were they supposed to drive her without touching her?” 

“You...you shut your face hole.” 

He pulls the car into a garage and Sam does a double take. 

“You’re letting someone else check her over?” 

Dean looks at him like he’s just asked if he can take a shit on one of the seats. 

“No. I called them earlier, made an arrangement to use the space and tools. I’m not hauling her halfway across the country without a touch up.” 

Sam, not for the first time this trip, profoundly regrets coming. 


	53. An Angel Gets His Wings

Cas stands outside the door, angel blade clutched in his sweating hand. He keeps adjusting his grip, afraid he’s going to drop it. 

It’s not the first time he’s been down here, probably won’t be the last either. He can’t push past that last hurdle, his courage always betraying him at the last second. 

He puts his hand against the door, tries to apply force. Tries to do anything other than stand here, quivering. 

“Dean?” 

The voice startles him and he jerks forward and suddenly the door is open and he’s standing there, looking directly at Cahor for the first time since his escape. 

The angel grins. 

“How unexpected, Castiel.” 

Cas can’t move, frozen on the spot, can’t talk, can’t think. 

“I thought it was Dean, back for another one of our talks.” 

That breaks through and suddenly Cas is moving forward, anger overcoming the paralysing fear. He jerks to a stop just in front of the table, just out of Cahor’s reach. 

“Dean?” He rasps, voice cracked and rough but at least there. 

“He comes down here most days, doesn’t always say anything, but the times where he does, well. Our little talks are the highlight of my day.” A pause, an unpleasantly widening grin. “I don’t know that he takes quite as much pleasure from them, not judging by his face, but then again what do I know about the twitches and ticks of lesser beings. He always comes back, so he must be getting something out of it.”

“What have you been saying to Dean?” 

Cas’s voice doesn’t wobble, even if the rest of him is trying to collapse in on itself. His hands are trembling and his back is throbbing. Memories keep trying to force themselves over the present, the cold itch of a wet floor, the smell of damp and blood, the pain, the pain, the— 

“He was so curious about the time we spent together, you and I – he claimed to want every detail. It’s funny, before this I was given to the belief that physical pain is the most effective form of torment. Looks like we both learned a lot, Dean and I.” 

“Don’t—” 

“It was delicious, and he just kept on coming back for more. Wanted to know all the thousand ways I shredded your tainted flesh, the ways I befouled you and broke you.” 

“You...” Cas trails off. Dean _knows_. Dean knows and Cahor was the one who told him. 

“Is that why you’re here, because you wanted to come and make sure he never found out about our adventures? Because you thought that maybe if he didn’t know you were ruined beyond all repair then maybe you’d be able to work everything out.” Cahor’s grin widens. “Well, it’s too late. 

“Did you know that the guilt keeps him awake at night, the guilt that he didn’t get to you in time, that he couldn’t save you before there _was_ no you anymore? 

“Every time he looks at you, now, he remembers that, remembers how much he hates himself, how it should have been him instead of you. 

“But it was you and you’re still alive, just about, clawing and scraping your way along at the expense of everyone else like you always do.” Cahor pauses to see if Cas is going to object.

“It’d be better if you died, and you know it. Dean would be free, and Sam, and the other one. But you won’t. You’re a coward – only ever thinking of yourself.” Cahor spits the last word, and Cas flinches violently. 

“Still so afraid of me. Look at you – you’re trembling.” Cahor laughs, loud and gleeful, like this is all he’s ever wanted in the world, to be chained here in this basement, a prisoner but somehow the one in the room with all of the power. 

“I’m not afraid of you.” Cas lies through gritted teeth. He can’t think about what Cahor is saying, can’t let any of it in because he knows it’s true, he knows if he parses it it’ll overwhelm him and he won’t be able to do what he came here for. He has to be strong, be resolute. He has to be Castiel the avenging angel, and not Cas the pathetic junkie scum. 

He lunges forward with the blade, stabs down and— 

Cahor’s hand wraps around his wrist, chain broken in half, and he turns Cas’s blow with ease. 

“Still so pathetic, Castiel.” He twists Cas’s wrist around until it threatens to snap, and Cas drops the blade with a cry. “You shouldn’t have brought me this knife, you know how much fun I have with knives.” 

Cahor uses one hand to grab the back of Cas’s head and slam it down against the table, picks up the blade with the other and scores a line up Cas’s cheek as he laughs. “This is going to hurt.” He says, but Cas’s eyes are glazed and blank, trapped in a memory of a situation all too like this one. 

_He’s lying facedown on the floor, ribs digging in painfully. He’s not sure how he got here – everything hazy and loud. He can feel his heartbeat pounding like he’s been running, running, running._

_A kick connects with his side and he tries to curl in a defensive ball but hands grab him and roll him onto his back. He tries to sit up but a punch to the face lets him know that isn’t going to be permitted so he stays down, reaches up to wipe the snot dribbling from his nose. His fingers come away bloody, which surprises him. He hadn’t thought the blow was that bad. He goes to touch it again but Cahor grabs his wrists, wrenches one nearly backwards just for the pure pleasure of seeing Cas wince._

_He ties Cas’s wrists together, tight enough that it hurts, and then stands, uses his foot to flip Cas back onto his front again._

_“This is what you get for trying to escape.” Cahor says, lands another kick. Cas is used to the kicks though, so he’s pretty sure this isn’t his punishment._

_He waits, tension building with every passing moment – fear building with every passing moment._

_He’s good at that, Cahor. Knows the value of his victim’s own imagination._

_Something sharp and heavy digs into each of Cas’s thighs and he realises that Cahor is kneeling on him, pinning him down for some purpose._

_There’s the sound of ripping fabric as Cahor cuts off his shirt, and then as Cas feels the cold, sharp edge of the knife on his back, he realises what his punishment is going to be._

_That doesn’t help prepare for it, though. The first cut is deep, agonising. He thrashes, tries to buck Cahor off, but Cahor simply grabs him by the hair and smashes his head against the ground until he stops struggling. He’s careful not to do it hard enough to knock him out. Wants him to feel every moment of this._

A sharp but minor pain brings Cas back into the present. The angel blade, pressing into his arm hard enough to draw blood but not much else. 

“Where did you go, Castiel?” Cahor asks. “It looked painful, but, mind you, that’s been your entire existence since I found you, hasn’t it?” 

Cas doesn’t say anything, his mind in numb, can’t even think of a reply let alone a way to escape his fate. 

Cahor leans down, mouth close enough to Cas’s ear that he can feel the heat of his breath, whispers. 

“I was about to kill you, did you know that? Pump you full of enough junk that you died in bliss, left there for Dean to find. But he arrived too early, and you know what, I’m _glad._ If I’d let you die, this would have been over, you wouldn’t be suffering anymore. 

“You think you escaped, you think you foiled my plan but you didn’t. I win if you suffer, and what has every moment since you’ve escaped been but suffering?” 

“No,” Cas protests feebly. That can’t be right, but he can’t think of anything to counter it with – can only summon tainted memories – the abject pain of withdrawal, every dark shadow to what he should remember as a tender moment. It all seems to agree with Cahor’s brutal assessment, all he’s done is suffer and he just wants to feel okay, just wants a moment where everything feels fine and he’s not pinned down by the weight of his own pathetic, desperate, needy agony. 

“There’s only one thing that’s made you feel good these past months, Castiel. Only one thing that can wipe away all that pain. 

Cahor releases his grip and Cas jerks back, upright on trembling legs that barely hold him. He’s trying to pull together the strength to turn tail, flee like the coward he is, when Cahor slaps something down on the table. 

It’s a small, bloodstained plastic wrap. The secret that Cahor spent his long, lonely hours cutting free from his own flesh. 

Cahor picks it up, presses it into Cas’s twitching palm. 

“Take it, don’t take it. It doesn’t matter to me. Either way, I still win.” 

*

There’s a faint voice telling Cas to drop it, to drop it and get the hell out of there, but he doesn’t. His hand closes compulsively around it, like he isn’t even in control, snatches it away and slips it furtively into his pocket. Some innate junkie sneakiness already coming to the fore. It’s mine, can’t let anyone else see it, can’t let them take it. 

He can feel it there, throbbing like his grace. It’s calling to him, the electric bliss, the heat and spark coming off it. He can faintly hear Cahor saying something to him but he doesn’t care. His world has narrowed down to the itch of his track marks, the pounding in his veins. It’s like they know, like they’re trying to get his attention. Stick the needle in me, I’m ready. 

He turns his back on Cahor, practically runs out of the room – doesn’t even hear the laughter echoing after him. 

He sequesters himself away in one of the old, unused bedrooms with a spoon, a lighter, a needle and a belt. He hasn’t done this before but he’s had it done to him enough times that he knows exactly what to do. 

He doesn’t measure out the amount, doesn’t care enough to listen to the muffled knowledge that he’ll be less tolerant than he was. If it’s too much it’s too much. That won’t be his problem. 

He tightens the belt around his arm, plunges in the needle and falls back onto the bed. 

_Bliss_

_*_

Dean’s tired and sticky from the road but he feels more relaxed than he has for a while. The time away did him good – and having Baby back doesn’t hurt. 

He makes a line for the bedroom, hoping to see Cas there. What for, he doesn’t fucking know. To say hi, maybe, and then turn tail and run before he can vomit up all of the curdled fear and anxiety and _what went wrong_ and _I miss you_ and _please just let me talk to you like a human being for five minutes I just need five minutes of pretending that we’re okay to get me through the next few weeks._

Cas isn’t in their bedroom – Charlie doesn’t know where he is. 

“Some baby-sitter you are.” He snorts, and she kicks his shin. 

“I’ve been asleep, I figured that was allowed, or did you want me to stay awake the entire time you were gone? The doors are alarmed, it’s not like he could’ve escaped.” 

“Hey, what, since when are the doors alarmed?” 

“Since we had a homicidal angel tied up in the basement.” 

So that’s how everyone keeps fucking noticing when he bolts. And he thought he was losing his edge. 

“Great, well I’ll go make sure he isn’t collapsed dead in some corner and then I’m gonna go shower for a week to get the smell of Sam’s chilli farts off me.” 

“Ew.” 

*

“Cas?” Dean yells, banging on the door of one of the old bedrooms. He’s looked all over the bunker, all the places Cas was actually likely to be, and now he’s becoming increasingly convinced that Cas is actually hiding from him. Probably sulking about the impromptu split – or wishing it was still ongoing. 

He’s about to give up and go back when he hears a crash, something falling to the ground. He kicks the door open and sees Cas lying on the floor by the bed, eyes closed, belt tied around his arm. 

For a second, right before the panic sets in, he wonders how Cas knew to do that – some sort of innate junkie knowledge? And then he realises exactly where he learned it, Trainspotting, Junk, Requiem for a Dream and a thousand other fragments of drug related literature left over from Metatron. 

Dean runs over to the floor to check his pulse, unable to tell if Cas is breathing and his mind goes to the worst place. He’s ODing, he collapsed and he’s dying he’s fucking dying and there’s nothing Dean can do to save him. 

At Dean’s touch Cas’s eyes flicker open, pupils blown up. He grins, wide and goofy. 

“Dean,” he says, all teeth and gums and outright shining glee. “Dean, I’ve got my wings back. I can fly.”


	54. Blood Like Lacquer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y92hX906vZs

“I’ve got my wings back, I can fly!” He breaks off in hysterical giggles, waving his arms like he’s trying to take off. 

He’s fine, the fucking junkie bastard is fine. And that’s great, but Dean can’t stand here and watch this. They were past this, Cas was getting better – and now he’s high as all fuck and delighted because he thinks he’s an angel again. 

There’s too much pain there to unpack, a swirling chaos of _back to step one wasn’t going through it enough_ dread mixed with the old angst about whether Cas regrets giving up his grace just for poor, pathetic, broken Dean. 

He barely makes it out of the room before the fear explodes as fury. He punches a wall, roars so loud that it hurts his throat but he can’t stop – the violence or the guttural moans that his screams fade into. 

This is his fault, somehow. He let Cas down, drove him to this. It has to be. 

Someone grabs him by the arm and tries to restrain him. He puts up some semblance of a fight, trying to crush his attacker against the wall and then he gives up, allowing them to lower him to the ground. 

“Dean?” Sam’s voice breaks through, and he gets the impression that he’s been trying to get his attention for some time. “Dean, are you back with us?” 

“Yeah” he mutters, grits his teeth against the rattling, choking noise rising in his throat. He’s in the kitchen. When did he get to the kitchen? 

“I put him in the recovery position,” Charlie says, and it takes a while to realise she isn’t talking about him. She’s talking about the other raging fucking mess in the bunker. “He’s sleeping it off.” 

Dean doesn’t say anything, and Charlie sighs, leans down to eye level. 

“I know this is tough, but you haven’t got long to get it out of your system before he’s gonna be awake and needing our support. It’s a setback, but we’re here for him.” 

Dean struggles to his feet. “I can’t – I can’t fucking do this.” 

Charlie jumps up, grabs him by the arm. “You have to.” 

“I love him.” Dean says. “And I wish I didn’t. I wish he’d never come back, that he’d just fucking stayed in heaven where he was safe and an angel and fucking okay. I can’t fucking do this. I can’t watch him strung out and high. I can’t watch him overdose and _die_ because I’m not good enough for him. Because even though I fucking love him it’s not enough to keep him clean. _I’m_ not enough.” 

“That’s not true—” Charlie starts to say. 

Dean yanks his arm away from her. “Yeah, then why did I find him laughing about being an angel again? Fucking tell me that, Charlie. He doesn’t want to be here, he made a mistake and he thought I was worth giving up his grace for and now he’s paying the price for my goddamn failure!” 

“None of this is your fault, Dean.” Sam says, but in a hollow way, like he knows he might as well have said nothing for all the difference it’ll make. 

And sure enough, Dean carries on like he didn’t even hear him. “For a minute there watching him with that fucking grin I was so tempted. I wanted to snatch up his fucking needle and shove whatever was left there up into my veins ‘cause he looked so happy, I’ve not seen him look like that for weeks. I can’t make him look like that. Maybe this thing is gonna kill him, maybe it’d kill me too, but at least we’d both get to feel like everything was fucking okay, better than okay – fucking good one last goddamn time.” 

“You don’t mean that, Dean.” Charlie says, and she sounds furious. 

“Yeah,” he says, pushing past her and making for the bedroom, “I fucking do.” 

He grabs a bag and throws some clothes into it, and then he hears the door slam. He swears, runs over and tries the handle. Locked. 

“Let me out of the FUCKING ROOM!” 

“Not until you’ve calmed down.” 

He takes a deep breath. “Step back from the door.” 

“No.” 

“I’ll shoot.” 

“Go ahead.” 

He grunts in frustration, drops his bag and punches as hard as he can. Nothing but sore knuckles and blood. He scans around the room for something heavy, picks up a metal bookend. He’s just hefting it, ready to swing, when the door bursts open. 

“Than—” He stops dead at the look on Charlie’s face. 

“It’s Cas, he’s gone.” 

* 

Cas doesn’t so much wake up as drag himself back to consciousness, and he regrets bothering almost immediately. He feels like someone peeled his skin off while he slept, sprinkled his flesh with metal filings and then sewed it back on again. He rubs at his arm, half expecting to feel them poking through. 

Mentally he isn’t much better. His head feels foggy with a loose, freewheeling sort of guilty dread. He’s used to waking up like that, it barely even bothers him anymore. There’s something else, though. Something he needs to remember. Something specific. 

He scratches further up his arm, eyes still closed, feels a track mark and there we go. 

Cahor, the meltdown, the relapse. But there’s something else too. Something worse. 

Oh god, Dean. 

Cas drags himself upright, head spinning, grabs at the wall to try and stop himself falling over. He dry heaves and all he wants to do is collapse on the floor but he can’t stop he needs to find Dean he needs to stop him, stop him from abandoning him again and leaving him all alone because he can’t take that he fucking can’t. 

He can hear voices and he makes his unsteady way towards them – if Dean had gone someone would have gone with him, or after him, so he must still be here. That must be him. 

He’s nearly there. They’re in the kitchen, he can hear Charlie but she’s indistinct. 

Dean’s voice, though, carries. Oh, it fucking carries. 

“I love him,” innocent words but the tone sets Cas’ blood pounding. He doesn’t even need to hear what comes next, but he does. Of course he does. “and I wish I didn’t. I wish he’d never come back—” the rest gets drowned out by the sound of Cas dry heaving on the floor. 

He lurches away, white noise throbbing in his head, drowning out all coherent thoughts. He feels trapped, like the walls are pressing in on him from all sides, can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t even see. 

Everything feels too close. He can feel the cold from the walls leeching the heat from his skin. It’s like the building is alive and breathing down the back of his neck, like it’s about to collapse on top of him and suffocate him and he has to get out, GET OUT. 

The first door he tries is locked, the second too and in his panic he forgets that there are keys, forgets where to find them. The bunker is trying to keep him here and he can’t let it he can’t he’s going to suffocate and – 

The next door opens and he isn’t expecting it, nearly turns back thinking it’s a trap but he sees outside, green, cloudy grey sky. He runs forwards, can still feel the bunker tugging at him. Outside isn’t enough, he needs to get away, get out of its reach. 

He can see cars, the Impala and the Jeep. He can’t face that black monster, all leather seats and too many memories. He falls into the driver's seat of the Jeep and tries to start it but there’s no key and he can’t find it in the usual places and he needs to go, needs to get out of here so he doesn’t have a choice. 

The key is in the ignition, like the Impala was waiting for him. Like she wanted to save him. 

He spins the car around and accelerates up the track, too fast but she’ll understand, she’ll forgive him. He’s doing it, escaping, and the further he gets the more he can feel the pressure draining away, he’s going to be okay as long as he keeps going. 

Only, Cas doesn’t just have the one trauma. He has a fistful of them, and as one retreats back into the darkness so another one digs it’s claws in and pulls itself to the forefront. And this one won’t be pacified quite so easily. 

He wants, he craves, he needs more drugs. He has to get somewhere Dean won’t find him and stuff his veins full of it because he needs it, he needs it and he can’t let Dean see and he can’t let Dean stop him and it’s Dean he’s running from in his own fucking car and he shouldn’t have done that because Dean wants him gone but he’ll come after the car so he needs to find somewhere he can ditch her that Dean will find her and – 

_SMASH_

Something hits the bumper and he swerves but it’s far too late and the Impala spins out of control, smashes against a tree. 

Cas opens the door and stumbles out of the car. There’s a deer splayed out on the road, white fur and red eyes and so much blood. Cas’s hands are shaking and he looks down and he can see that they’re coated in it, fresh and thick and rank and it’s not the first time. There’s so much there, too much for just this one victim. Layers of it, coated like varnish, polished smooth and red and monstrous. 

He stumbles forward and cradles the deer’s head in his hands and he can’t be responsible for another life he needs to make this right, needs to make it okay. 

* 

There’s only one road Cas could have taken, and for that they’re all grateful. He can’t have gone far, they’ll get him before he hits the main streets and this becomes more of a hunt than a chase. Anyway, the Impala is a distinctive car. They'll find him, they know that. It’s just how soon. 

Dean is driving, which no one thinks is a good idea. Like they’d ever be able to stop him, though. He’s driving fast and sloppy enough that even Sam – who's sat shotgun with him for years of reckless chases – is on the verge of telling him to tone it down. He doesn’t get the chance, though, because Dean slams the car to a halt. 

Sam only sees the deer, doesn’t get what’s happening, but then Charlie shouts. 

“The Impala!” 

Dean throws open the door and runs towards the deer, while Charlie and Sam exit at a marginally more measured pace to examine the Impala. She’s empty, and there are no footprints leading into the forest, at least as far as they can see. 

They head over to Dean, who’s standing oddly still. They don’t see why until they get closer. 

Cas is thrown into sharp relief by the headlights, almost looks like a black and white film. He’s hunched over the deer, cradling it with one hand, the fingers of the other pressed to its forehead as he mutters something under his breath. 

He pulls his hand away, looks down at the deer and howls in frustration, presses his fingers frantically back to its head and starts mumbling again. 

“What’s he—” Charlie starts to ask. 

“He’s trying to heal it.” Dean says. 


	55. Not In Kansas Anymore

Dean holds it together for longer than anyone would have taken bets on. He holds it together while Charlie gets  Cas to stand, leave the animal and climb into the car. He holds it together for the entire drive back, and for as long as it takes to coax  Cas into bed.

He holds it together right up until they lock him in and  leave Charlie sat on a  chair by the door to keep an ear out for any sign of movement.

Sam can see him winding up to launch at something so  he intercepts, grabs him and pins his arms behind his back.

“I’ll let you punch it out,” he says, as Dean struggles, “but not right here.” 

He half walks, half carries Dean to the g ym , lets him go and quickly shuts the door.

Dean rips into the punching bag, fists coming away bloody after a few hits, but Sam leaves him to it. There's a lot of repressed emotion here that he clearly needs to beat out, and he’d rather not intervene and risk a broken nose.

Eventually  Dean exhausts himself, slumps down on the  ground against the wall, breathing hard. Sam sits  beside him, offers a water bottle. Dean doesn’t take it.

“He was doing okay.” Dean says eventually. “I thought he was doing okay.”

“How would you know?” Sam asks, because it’s time for some tough love. There’s a reason he waited until Dean physically  exhausted before he dug into this.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means you haven’t even been in the bunker for the last  week . It means even before that you were keeping your distance from  Cas . So how would you know whether he’s doing okay or not?”

“You’re saying this is my fault.”

“No. I don’t think this is anyone’s fault. I think  Cas relapsed. It happens. Recovering from an addiction is hard, things get better, they get worse, they get better again. Around and around we go.”

“Sure fucking sounded like there was an accusation in there.”

“I don’t think the relapse is your fault.”

“But?”

“But that isn’t the only thing going on here. One minute everything’s getting back to normal,  Cas is recovering – slowly – the two of you are starting to treat each other like people again and not like startled animals. Then suddenly you’re getting wasted and throwing punches,  Cas becomes a grunge sweater enthusiast, and you’re barely in the same room as each other.”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your fucking business.”

“I don’t want it to be my business. You’re making it my fucking business.”

“No, you’re just poking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.  Cas wanted space, so I gave it to him. That’s got  jackshit to do with the state he’s in now.”

“He doesn’t want  space . He wants you.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Yeah I fucking do. I might not be the love of his life or whatever, but I am his friend. He talks to me.”

“Yeah, well. That makes one of us because he sure as shit don’t talk to me.”

“The problem with you two is you’re too goddamn similar.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means that if I didn’t corner either of you and force you to talk to me, nothing would ever come out. You’d sit there miserable and angry until you exploded. If you want  Cas to talk to you, you have to make him. And you can’t do that if you won’t go anywhere near him.”

“He doesn’t need pushing, he needs space.”

“You didn’t think that at one point. Don’t think I didn’t see you practically sat in his lap on more than one occasion.”

“That was before.” Dean has his head in his hands, pushes the words out through gritted teeth.

Before  _ what?! _ ”

“Before I pushed him too far and fucked him up.” Dean laughs, short and harsh. “Fucked him up more.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him, I didn’t know about his back. I thought he was only hurting from the withdrawal. Jesus, he  didn’t  even mean to show me. And god, the nightmares, he was reliving it, I think. We could barely wake him.”

“Wait.” Sam’s putting two and two together and coming up with something he really doesn’t like the shape of. “You saw  Cas’s injuries by accident , he didn’t show you ?”

“Yeah.”

“And then you started giving him space?”

“No. I made him have a fucking flashback nightmare so bad he tried to kill me and Charlie, and  _ then  _ I started giving him space.”

“But it all happened on the same night?”

“Yeah.”

“And did  Cas say you’d caused the nightmare – did he mention anything about it?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him he’d hurt you and  Charlie ?”

“Maybe, no, I don’t know. What’s your point?”

“ Cas has had nightmares almost every night since  we got him back, you won’t have caused that one, and he’ll probably barely even remember it happened.”

“He never said—”

“Of course he didn’t. He doesn’t want you to worry even more than you already are. So think about it from  Cas’s perspective. He won’t even remember the nightmare, all he’ll remember is—”

Understanding slides between Dean’s ribs like a knife, punctures his lungs.

“That I saw his injuries, and then I wouldn’t go near him. I thought I was pushing him too hard, that I should back off and treat him like you and Charlie do, until he was ready.”

“So he thinks you got one look at him – the real him, now – and were so disgusted you wouldn’t come near him again.”

“Jesus. I  fucked up, Sam. I fucked up so bad.” He laughs bitterly. “Even when I’m trying to do the right thing I’m fucking him over.”

“That’s ‘cause you keep doing what you think is best for people without asking them. Ask him, and  don’t let him get away with whatever answer he thinks you want to hear. Get the truth out of him.”

It’s only just dawning on Dean the sheer misery he must have put Cas through. The _extra_ misery on top of everything else. God, he wonders if it would have been kinder to have left when he planned to, after they’d rescued Cas and caught Cahor. Broken his heart all at once instead of by degrees. Left him to recover with the steady, non-volatile presence of Sam and Charlie. 

It’s too late for that, anyway. He can’t just disappear again for no reason and leave  Cas to blame himself. He has to fix this. He needs to make sure  Cas knows that he’s loved, that he’s worth everything. That all Dean has ever tried to do is help him, even if it hurts, even if he fucks it up. 

“It all just made so much sense – and then  Cahor said—”

Dean’s slipped up and he knows it, doesn’t even need Sam to snap, “What?” at him.

“I wanted to know what happened, and I couldn’t ask  Cas .”

“So you went to  _ Cahor _ _?” _

“Yeah.”

“You asked the angel who dedicated his time to destroying the two of you, and you expected him to tell you the truth?”

“I—”

“Am a fucking idiot?” Sam’s tone is a degree more unkind than his words.

Dean grits his teeth. “I figured why would he lie, he wants to hurt me. The truth would do that.”

“Yeah, as would a lie that drives you and  Cas —”

BANG

The noise puts a sharp end to that argument. It shakes the floor, the walls. Alarms start screaming everywhere – too many to place – and Sam and Dean shrug off their tension and slip into the easy cohesion of  unparalleled hunters. 

They run to  Cas’s room – Charlie’s  outside it,  looking at her phone. 

“What’s going on?” Sam asks.

She shows him  the screen – patched into the CCTV.

There’s Crowley, at the head of a pack full of demons.

They almost relax a little. The bunker is pretty much impenetrable to demons. And sure, a siege isn’t ideal, but fuck it. 

Someone almost says _ it could be worse. _

And Crowley, with a grin like a frat boy next to an unconscious woman, lifts three fingers into the air. They watch, with a sickening feeling of dread as he counts it down, 3,2,1.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The door is gone, half the concrete wall too. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Sam says, but there’s a shake to his voice. They know Crowley, he doesn’t gamble like this. “The wards will hold them.”

“You had to fucking say it.” Dean growls, as a black eyed woman runs, laughing down the corrido r towards  them.

She grabs Charlie’s arm, tries to sink her teeth in and gets rewarded with an angel blade in the ribs. Which is great, but she wasn’t the only one by a long stretch. She was thrown in to test the warding, and now the hoard is bearing down.

Sam and Dean aren’t  weaponless either, you don’t bring an avenging angel into your home and then saunter about without protection, but even the three of them don’t have a chance against the numbers they saw massed at the door.

“Get  Cas .” Dean yells, lunging forward and making short work of one demon, parrying the blade of another with enough force that he’s sure his wrist is going to break. 

Charlie hesitates for a second, but then she opens the door wide. The demon pushes Dean back and then collapses as Sam gets it from the side. He grabs Dean and bodyslams him through the door which Charlie holds open just long enough to get them through and then slams shut. She slices up her arm and paints a sigil on the door. It won’t hold them for long, but they shouldn’t need long.

“What the fuck.” Dean spits.

“There are hundreds of them out there, Dean. We need to escape.”

“How?! We’re trapped?”

“I can get us to Oz.”

“How long will it take?”

“Already open, just needs to get big enough” she says, as a tiny glowing circle appears in front of her, growing rapidly.

Dean nods. “Okay, Sam – you take  Cas through. Charlie, if I’m not back by the time they get through the door shut the portal and I’ll make my own way out.”

“And where the fuck are you going?”

“I have to get  Cahor .”

“You’ll die.”

“As long as I kill him before they get to him, I don’t care. He knows about  Cas – I can’t let Crowley get that knowledge.”

“He wouldn’t co-operate with a demon, Dean. They’ll probably just kill him.”

“I’m not taking the chance that he hates demons less than he hates us.”

“Jesus,” Charlie mutters, as the portal to Oz grows big enough to pass through. “We don’t have time for this.” A little louder; “Sam, grab  Cas and go through. I’ll keep the portal open.”

Sam is about to protest, but he catches the look in her eye. He grabs the still blissfully unconscious Cas and passes through. Charlie sticks her hand out a little, enough that it’s just about inside Oz, and then she grabs Dean’s arm.

He crumples to the ground and she drags him through, closing the portal without a word.


	56. At a Crossroads

Crowley is furious.

“What do you mean they aren’t there? They were trapped in a tiny little room. They can’t have teleported out!”

“We’ve scoured everywhere we can reach, but whatever spell you used only broke the warding that was built into the bunker. Anything added after that is still intact – there are places we can’t get to.”

Crowley grunts, lunges out and grabs the subordinate demon –  Hethor ,  Hastor ? He doesn’t have the time or the  arsedness to learn all of their names – and burns him out.

That lightens his mood a little, but he’s still pissed off. He shoves it down. He might be a couple of Winchesters down, but he still has some business to attend to here. He can take out his anger later, maybe smash the library, burn a few ancient and irreplaceable books.

He makes his way down to the basement. He notices most of the warding down here is angelic, interesting. 

“So.” He says to the figure chained to the table. “Nice to put a face to the disembodied voice.”

The captive says nothing.

“So tell me, why are the Winchesters keeping an angel locked up in their basement?”

Still nothing.

“Strong, silent type, are we? Look, I’m grateful to you for breaking the defences and all, but we had a deal. You give us access, we catch the Winchesters, and you can go free.”

“I gave you access.”

“It speaks! Yes, you did. But the Winchesters got away. You didn’t break all the warding and they managed to sneak off down some little tunnel you didn’t tell us about.” 

“Your problem, Crowley, is that you always think too small.”

“Excuse me?!”

“You didn’t come here to capture the Winchesters. You came here to free me.”

Crowley laughs. “Did I?”

Cahor beckons, and there’s something about the look in his eyes that intrigues Crowley. He comes over to the table, and the angel whispers in his ear.

Crowley stands up straight, a smile  slowly spreading across his face.

“Well, it looks like it was worth coming here after all.”

*

Dean, to exactly no-one’s surprise, wakes up furious. He almost decks Charlie full in the face, only reining in at the last moment and taking his fury out on some weird looking tree.

Charlie ignores Dean and kneels down beside  Cas . 

“What’re you doing?” Sam asks.

“Making sure he doesn’t wake up.”

Sam doesn’t make the joke. Neither of them are in the mood. “How?”

“So, uh, magic in Oz isn’t like magic on earth.”

“You can use magic?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, I didn’t have to do a deal with any demons to get it. It doesn’t work like that here”

They’re interrupted by Dean, knuckles bloody and raw.

“You need to get me back, now!”

“Not until it’s safe.”

“Safe? If they get  Cahor we’ll never be safe again.”

“They either have him or they’ve killed him by now, Dean. Whatever we do won’t change that.”

“If you’d let me go after—”

“Then you’d have been dead before you got the door half open and the demons would’ve overwhelmed us all before we could shut the portal. Just  _ think _ .”

That seems to penetrate, at least. He doesn’t look happy about it, but the thing about Dean is that if you tell him off for being  self-sacrificing he’ll get  pissy . You tell him off for putting _ other _ people in danger and he’ll usually listen. Listen, internalise it and beat himself up about it for days. Shitty of me, Charlie thinks, but at least it  side-tracks him.

Dean paces for a little while, processing, and then comes over to check Cas is still breathing. No-one’s told him about the spell so he just figures Cas’s body is still in recovery mode – which is also helping to stop him from exploding too loudly or violently in case he wakes him.

“So, what now?” Dean asks.

“We need to find somewhere safe for  Cas to recover.” Charlie says.

“We could stay here?” Sam suggests.

“Yeah.” Dean says, which surprises everyone. “Charlie should stay here with  Cas and look after him, and you and me should go back and go after Crowley.”

“Oz isn’t exactly safe.” Charlie says. “We’re better off finding somewhere back in our world if we can.”

“Which means we’re going to have to go back to the bunker, right?” Sam asks.

“Not  necessarily . I can open a portal to somewhere else.”

“No.” Dean says. “We need to go to the bunker.”

“The bunker is compromised, Dean. I don’t know how they got in there, but if they did it once they could do it again.”

“Maybe, but they won’t expect us to go back, and all our goddamn weapons and books are there.”

“They’ll have taken everything of use.”

“It’s a big place, they won’t have got everything. Anyway, you seem so sure that they’ll have killed  Cahor , not captured him. I want to check for wings.”

Which makes so much sense that Sam almost believes him. Oh, he definitely wants to go back to the bunker, he’s just lying through his goddamn teeth about why. 

“Besides, any issues and Charlie can zap us back to Oz, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And the alarms and motion sensors are still working?”

Charlie checks her phone, which is still getting a signal, god alone knows how.

“Looks like it, yeah. CCTV is fading in and out, but the motion sensors are still fine, there’s been no movement for about an hour.”

Sam can’t find a reason to disagree that isn’t outright telling Dean to his face that he knows he’s up to something. Better to arouse no suspicions and watch him like a motherfucker. So he agrees, and that’s that. 

*

The bunker looks…fine. Properly, suspiciously so. The only thing out of place is the hole where the door used to be, and the  missing angel in the basement.

No wings.

There is a blood sigil on the table  though , which answers the question of how the demons got in.

“Smart.” Sam says, examining it. “The bunker’s protections can only be broken from inside the building, and by a creature that the wards don’t guard against. The Men of Letters thought that would limit it to humans only, which would make it impregnable to attack, as long as they were smart enough not to bring in any spies – which they definitely thought they were. They didn’t have any dealings with angels, so if it even occurred to them that angels were real, they would have assumed they were good guys and not warded against them.”

“ Fuckin ’ a.” Dean grumbles. “Can you patch any of it up, or are we sitting here in the open with our thumbs up our asses and a please murder me sign on our back?”

Sam scrunches up his face. “I can make it safer, but I’ll need to do a lot more research to get the original wards back up. For now we can at least ward a few rooms the traditional way and as long as we stick to those we’ll be safe.”

“Great.” Dean says, in a tone that suggests he thinks it’s anything but. “Let’s get all that crap done and then you two can get some shut eye. I’ll take first watch – I know we’ve got the security tech still up and running but I’m fucked if I want to be caught napping.”

He leaves unsaid that the security measures don’t protect against people sneaking out of the building. Say, for example, if there’s someone who’s just woken up from a relapse, has no idea that they’ve been attacked and decides they really want to get into town to score some more drugs.

“Yeah I think a lookout is a good idea.” Charlie says, and when Charlie doesn’t want you to rely on the tech that’s a telling sign. “I don’t mind taking second watch.”

Sam almost passes out with relief. He’s exhausted but he expected a long night keeping an eye on Dean to make sure he didn’t slink off. If Dean’s taking first watch that means there’s no chance of him splitting at least until Charlie’s shift. He wouldn’t risk  Cas like that.

*

Cas is twitchy, muttering and moaning in his sleep. The spell Charlie put on him is wearing off now that they’re out of Oz, but Dean doesn’t know that. Thinks he’s just having a rough night. 

Dean sits on the bed next to him, watches him for a little while. He’s committing Cas’s face to memory – his new one. The one that’s a little gaunt and sunken, even darker shadows under his eyes than in the Jimmy days. It looks eerily unfamiliar, despite the fact that Dean’s been looking at it for months.

But that’s kind of the problem. He’s been treating it like a placeholder, something he doesn’t need to get used to because it’ll be gone soon. 

Huh.

He once told Cas – as part of a slightly shitty pep talk– that he’d rather have him, cursed or not. Always been true, but maybe he also always leaned a little too heavy on the ‘or not’ side. He lives in a world of demons and angels, where even death isn’t permanent. Of course he meant it when he said he’d take Cas plus curse. But  of course he was  gonna try and find a get out clause – for all the good it did. 

He tucks a bit of hair away from  Cas’s eyes. It’s getting almost as shaggy as Sam’s. Kinda suits him. He always looked better a little dishevelled.

Dean waits a little longer, kisses  Cas softly on the forehead and nods to himself. He’s gonna do this, and it’s all gonna be okay.  Cas is gonna be okay.

“I’m gonna fix this for you, buddy. I promise.”

*

He goes to Sam’s door first. “You awake?” He asks, loud enough to be  heard if he is, but not loud enough to wake him. No response. “I need to talk to you.”

Still no response. Not proof that he isn’t feigning sleep, but good enough for Dean.

He does the same with Charlie, and, once he’s reasonably sure they’re both ou t for the count he goes down to the garage. He picks out something reliable and minimally flashy. Totally  inconspicuous isn’t going to happen with all these retro cars, but  it  should do the trick well enough.

It doesn’t take him long to  gather everything he needs – most of it was already in the bunker. He pulls over to the side of the dirt road, takes a few minutes to gather himself and gets out of the car.

He walks to the centre of the crossroads, and he starts to dig.


	57. Is This the End of the Line, My Friend?

“Well, well. Fancy seeing you here.” Crowley says, grin wide enough that you could stuff a frisbee into it without touching the sides.

“Yeah, like you weren’t expecting it.”

“I expected you to try and fight me, I didn’t expect you to prostate yourself at my feet.”

“Does it look like I’m kneeling?”

“You might as well be, Dean.”

Dean grits his teeth. “You knew it’d come to this, you can quit pretending you were expecting anything else.”

Crowley laughs. “Fair cop. I thought it’d take longer though, thought you’d spend a lot more time  _ agonising _ .” He draws the word out  with a disdainful sneer.

Dean doesn’t say anything, and  Crowly sighs theatrically. “Fine, to business then. What is it that you want from me?”

“I want my prisoner back.”

“That all?”

“No, obviously fucking not. I want you to heal Cas. Totally and utterly – the drugs, the injuries, all the PTSD and the mental shit. I want him as healthy and as happy as he was before he got captured.”

“That’s a lot to ask.”

“I ain’t asking for it for free.”

“And your offer?”

“My soul, when I die of natural causes.”

“One offer, two demands. And a pretty paltry offer at that.”

“What else do you want?”

“I want  Castiel’s blood.”

“No.”

“Okay, bye then. Better hope my prisoner isn’t feeling too free with your junkie boyfriend’s little secret.”

“Half a vial.”

“I want your soul in one year, and as much blood as I can drain from the angel without killing him.”

“20 years and one vial.”

“10 years and two vials.”

“15—”

“Final offer, Dean.”  Crowly cuts him off. “Standard contract and a little to sweeten the pot, us being old friends and all.”

It’s better than Dean expected, he thought he’d get a year at most – but he really doesn’t like the idea of giving Crowley any of  Cas’s blood.

“6 months, no blood.”

He knows Crowley won’t take it, and sure enough, the demon just grins. “10 years, two vials.”

Dean grits his teeth and balls his fists. The only thing in punching distance is Crowley and that really won’t help the situation.

“Fine, but only if you swear you’ll leave  Cas alone. You have his blood, you won’t need him. Make that part of the deal, that you won’t try in any way – yourself or through anyone else – to hurt  Cas or try and get anything else off him.”

“ Eugh , fine.”

Dean nods, adrenaline surging. It’s going to work out. It’s going to work. He takes a step forward, but Crowley shakes his  head .

“We don’t seal the deal until I have that blood in my hands.”

“And what guarantee do I have that you won’t just take it and kill me without  honouring the deal?”

“My word.”

Dean laughs.

“Take it or leave it, Dean. You don’t have any other options.”

“Fine, but you bring  Cahor , we trade, and then we make the deal.”

“Sounds perfect.” Crowley purrs. “See you soon.” He vanishes in a puff of smoke, because he’s at once a showman, and also a massive cliché.

Dean almost collapses, whatever force had been holding him upright deserting him like it’s too ashamed to be around him. No time to waste, though. He hares it back to the bunker, heart pounding and sure he’s been discovered even though he’s barely been gone for an hour. Everything is silent, no sign of Sam or Charlie having stirred. 

He didn’t plan for this and it takes him far too long to find what he needs. They’ve hidden or destroyed most of the fucking needles for obvious reasons, and it’s not like they keep chloroform around for use on the regular.

He’s scared to even use the  chloroform on  Cas in his current state, but he doesn’t have a choice. Most people will wake up if you stick a needle in their arm and start stealing their goddamn blood, and he can’t risk anyone trying to stop him. 

He briefly entertains the thought of trying to trick Crowley, how different can one person’s blood be from  another’s , right? There must be some old Men of Letters blood in a freezer or something around here. He can’t fucking risk it, though. Crowley will be suspicious, there’s no way he won’t check somehow. 

Cas barely twitches as the needle goes under his skin. He looks pale, has he always looked this pale? Dean’s sweating, has to check  Cas’s pulse twice before he’ll believe that it’s normal, that he hasn’t accidentally killed him.

He doesn’t say anything, wants to apologise, tell  Cas he’s sorry that he ended up getting the shit end of the stick while everyone else just got tangential misery. He doesn’t though, if everything goes right he’ll have another chance to tell  Cas everything, and if it doesn’t, well. He doesn’t want those to be his last words to  Cas .

He finishes, removes the needle and uses a plaster to stick a little bit of cotton to the puncture wound. He’ll never moan about Charlie leaving her cotton makeup pad things in the bathroom again. 

Cas’s eyes flutter and he mumbles, “Dean?”

Shit, is he waking up? He’s trying to open his eyes but he can’t quite manage it.

“Don’t leave, Dean.” He mumbles, breathing deep. “Don’t leave me.” Again, softer. “Don’t…” he trails off, sliding back into unconsciousness.

“Don’t worry, buddy.” Dean says. “I’m here, I’m gonna be right here.” A sigh. “I’m not going anywhere.”

*

Crowley is already waiting when Dean arrives back at the crossroads. He’s got  Cahor chained in front of him, and it’s clear that the angel is furious, thrashing and trying to  escape .

Crowley kicks the back of his knees, sends him sprawling involuntarily down into the dirt. He lands face first, arms bound behind his back and unable to take the fall. Cahor spits out dust and contorts his body so he’s looking at Crowley. 

“We had a deal!”

“I’m claiming his soul, just like you told me to.”

“That isn’t what I  asked you to do.”

“You wanted him to suffer, I’m dragging him to hell for all eternity. Potato, slightly more demonic potato.”

“What of the abomination? You’re healing it!”

“ Physical anguish is so gauche. My way,  Castiel gets to live with the knowledge that every moment of his spry good health comes at the cost of Dean’s soul. You angels have no imagination when it comes to torment.”

“You—”

“ Are boring me.” Crowley sneers, clicks his  fingers .  Cahor’s throat seals shut, mouth gaping and eyes bulging.

He looks at Dean, “So, what’s the plan? Throw him in the boot and drive him back to his lovely little basement complex?”

Dean shakes his head, drawing an angel blade. “I’ve let  Cas down too many times when it comes to this bastard. I’m not letting that happen again – I’ve got to end it now, for  Cas’s —”

“Oh boohoo.”  Crowley interrupts, “I’m not your therapist. Just ha n d over the blood and I’ll hand him over and you can kill him.”

Crowley’s outwardly unimpressed, but inside he’s delighted. Dean’s so pathetically desperate to sort out this whole  Castiel mess. Crowley had never really planned to settle for 10 years, but seeing Dean in this state he suspects he could really rinse him. 

Dean takes two vials out of his pocket, shows them to Crowley and throws them over one at a time. Crowley catches them with demonic ease, unstoppers first one and then the other and takes a good, long sniff.  It doesn’t smell quite human or quite angel , which makes it a good shot that he’s not being fleeced. 

“All yours.” He says to Dean with a grin, throwing  Cahor’s chain in  his direction.

Dean doesn’t bother trying to catch it. He lunges forward and pulls the bound angel up to his feet. He tries to writhe free, but with his powers and his arms bound he’s pathetic. 

“Hope it was worth it.” Dean says, and then slits his throat, dropping the body to the floor.

Black wings burn into the dirt and Crowley kicks at some of it idly. “I’ve always wondered if that’s permanent.” He says, more to himself than Dean.

“No idea.” Dean says, dropping the angel blade. His hands are shaking so badly with adrenaline that he can’t keep hold of it. 

“Well,” Crowley says, eyeing the blade with some interest. “That’s the  sweeteners out of the way, on to the main event.”

Dean nods. “You’ll heal him completely – I swear, if you try and find some loophole—”

“Relax, Dean. He’ll be as good as new. Still riddled with angst, but that’s just his personality, not much I can do about that. Everything  Cahor did will be erased.”

“Good.” Dean looks relieved, like he expected this to be more difficult. Which, he’s not wrong, it’s about to be.

“Now, about our terms.”

“What about them?” There’s that worried frown.

“Well, I’ve been thinking. I let our friendship get in the way of my good sense, it’s not a precedent I should be setting.”

“What?”

“Ten years for a job like this? It isn’t really fair on me, it’s going to cause all sorts of other unreasonable demands. I can’t keep giving you special treatment.”

“You said—”

“And now I’m saying something else.”

“A year?” Dean asks, with a sinking, aching familiarity.

“No.”

“What then?”

“Now.”

“The fuck?”

“This was never about th at angel, we both know that. This is about  Castiel , and you’d do anything for him. Don’t think that I don’t know that, that I don’t know you.”

“I’ve just got him back, you can’t—”

“You come with me now and  Castiel gets a do-over. He can stay with Charlie, with Sam. A recently charcoaled little birdie told me they’ve been getting on better  than you two have, anyway. 

“ Or maybe, maybe he can start again properly. Go out into the world and live a normal human life. A long one, where he isn’t dodging claws and fangs and death. One where he finds someone who makes him happy. Someone who’s easy to love.”

“But—”

“Or we could call off this deal, leave it at that. You could go back to him, a  fucked up junkie being supported by a borderline alcoholic with the emotional maturity of a dishcloth. I give it a year before he’s overdosed and you’ve shot your brains out.” Crowley says with a wicked sneer.

“I can’t.”

“You can, and you will.”

And he’s right. He’s fucking right.

“Fuck. Okay.”

“Say it properly, Dean.”

“You heal  Cas , properly,  with  all the conditions we agreed on – you leave him alone , you don’t directly or indirectly cause any harm to come to him  – and as soon as I’ve checked that you’ve carried it out properly, you can have my soul.”

Crowley sighs, caveats, caveats.

“Good boy, and now we kiss to seal the deal.”

*

Dean leans forward, sick with revulsion. He can smell the sulphur rolling out of Crowley’s open mouth and fuck, as if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, it looks like he wants to kiss with tongue. 

Yeah, Dean. That’s the worst part, that’s the bit to focus on.

*

Crowley hears footsteps approaching, there’s a  moment of alarm – has Dean tricked him – and then he sees who it out of the corner of his eye and he nearly laughs out loud. 

“DEAN?!” Cas yells, and this is even better than Crowley could ever have imagined – Castiel witness to the moment he lays claim to Dean’s soul. The moment he  _ wins. _

He turns his head to look at  Castiel , really rub in the moment before he turns back to Dean.

And then he feels a white hot pain in his stomach, and Dean lurches backwards, wild-eyed, shaking. 

Crowley looks down, and there’s a wooden handle, old and scuffed. 

And then there are  sparks.

And then he’s gone.

*

For the first time in a long while,  Cas isn’t thinking about heroin, not even as background noise. He’s thinking about Dean, lips barely an inch from Crowley’s, that  defeated , grim determination on his face.

“Dean!” He yells, but Dean doesn’t turn to look at him, just Crowley, who grins that awful grin – and then he’s falling to the ground and  Cas doesn’t know what’s going on but it can’t be good. Nothing is good and Dean is selling his soul and – and Dean’s holding him tight, painfully  tight , and I guess this is goodbye.

*

“I wasn’t going to do it,  Cas .” Dean  murmurs into  Cas’s hair. “It wasn’t what it looked like, I promise.”

“Don’t you dare fucking leave me.” Cas manages to get out, furious and distraught and this isn’t how goodbyes go and why the fuck is Dean laughing?

“I tricked him,  Cas . I tricked him. He’s dead, and so is  Cahor , and it’s over. It’s finally fucking over. I promise.”

And  Castiel doesn’t know what else to do, so he punches Dean, as hard as he can.

*

It’s a weak, feeble punch, and Dean catches it easily. 

“I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have had to see that. That was—”

“Stupid.”  Cas says, as what Dean is trying to tell him finally sinks in , gears clicking and whirring almost audibly inside his brain. “How did you even get a knife that close to him? He should have searched you. You should be dead. You should be in  _ hell. _ ” He wheezes out, exhausted but still  going – still furious. He punches Dean again, and Dean lets this one land.  Cas needs to get it out, and it’s not like it hurts that much.

Dean doesn’t want to go into this, to explain himself, but he knows that  Cas needs it, needs to know t h at he’d thought it through, that he wasn’t just hoping for the best. He knew this would work.

So Dean stops his fists, forces him to make eye-contact.

“Hey, buddy, hey. Listen, okay?”

Cas does, mostly because he’s too tired to carry on fighting.

“Crowley knows me, or at least, he  thinks – thought he did. He thought he was the only option I had – that I needed what he could give me more than I cared  about going to hell again. But he was wrong.” He says, scrubs his hand through his hair awkwardly. “Look, I get it now, that there’s no magic  bullet for what you’re suffering. I kept my head up my ass assuming it’d just fix itself, go back to exactly how everything was before. But I get it now, it’s not going to, and that sucks, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do to ease it along. We can go to AA and maybe therapy would be a little dicey trying to explain around all the supernatural shit. ” He  realises he’s rambling and starts to course correct. “W hat I’m saying is, I get that I can’t just fix things, but I can be here for you and support you even if it’s gonna be real fucking hard.”

“I don’t understand the point of this pep-talk.” Cas snarks, because these are good words and all, but he’d like Dean to get to the bit where he explains why the hell he thought it’d be a good idea to take on Crowley.

Dean sighs. “It’s important. I need you to understand that I get it now, even if I didn’t before, even if I’ve not been helping you.”

“How is this connected to you trying to sell your soul?  Cas goes for blunt.

“Because I wasn’t trying to sell my soul.”

Cas looks sceptical, which, seeing as he just saw Dean about to make out with the king of hell ,  you can understand. 

“ Crowley thought you being a junkie was the worst thing possible for me, so of course I’d give up my soul to fix it. And he was kinda right. I mean, that’s how I acted, treating you like you were made of glass, afraid to touch you or be near you, telling myself it was so I didn’t hurt you more and not realising I was actually doing the opposite. 

“But he was wrong. That’s not the worst thing – the worst thing I could imagine would be you sitting there, torn up with guilt and grief because I’d sent myself to hell for you. I’d make one big grand gesture that would make myself feel real fucking great but really fuck you over. That’s the thing you couldn’t have recovered  from . I know what that does to  someone , I’ve been at both goddamn ends of it. I, fuck, this is hard, trying to find the right words.” He pause s, like he’s hoping  Cas will give him an out,  f ill the gap. Nothing is forthcoming  though , so eventually he soldiers on.

“Crowley thought he could use my love for  you  to tear me away, but, fuck,  Cas , I’ve let that happen enough times. I think I get it now ,  it’s not about throwing yourself away for someone you love, it’s about having the balls to stick around and help them through all the shitty things  that are fighting against you both.” Dean finishes, heart racing, oddly out of  breat h .

Still  Cas doesn’t say anything. Dean looks down, red hot fear pric king at th e  back of his neck. I said too much, I said something  wrong . This is why talking about shit is a bad fucking idea.

“That was very romantic.” Cas says slowly, and Dean looks up to see tears welling in his eyes. “But that doesn’t mean I want to kill you any less you reckless, ignorant, overconfident, pigheaded moron.” There’s no bitterness to his tone, and Dean swears he can see a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. 

“Does that mean you’re giving me a second chance?”

Cas does laugh then, more from giddy relief than anything.

“Let’s go home, Dean.”

Dean lets out a long breath,  and then a few more.

“Any chance we don’t tell Sam and Charlie about this ,  pretend  our two biggest problems both tripped over and stabbed each other?”

Cas’s withering look is  all that deserved, really. He’s going to be in so much trouble when he gets back – from  Cas as well, he suspects, once it really sinks in exactly what he’s done.

It’ll be worth it though. 

They’ll be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :o


	58. Once More With Feeling

The room is cold and smells slightly of mildew. Arranged in a rough circle are fourteen chairs. They’re lumpy and uncomfortable and Cas can’t stop fidgeting. Because of the discomfort. Definitely all that's going on here. 

He’s not alone, there’s a varied slice of humanity here too. Some high powered executive type is sitting opposite him, making a big show of looking at her phone importantly but Cas can see she’s scanning the room, trying to gauge whether there are any friends of friends of employers who might rat out her little secret. At least Cas doesn’t have to worry about that. 

The door opens and in slinks a young guy who looks like he hasn’t seen a shower in months. He's about as on edge as everyone here but there’s something about his specific tension that Cas recognises from when he was homeless. The expectation that you’re about to be kicked out of wherever you are and the need to try and hoard as much warmth and comfort as you can to fortify yourself against the looming torture of the outside. 

Cas feels the first coils of panic. He can’t do this. This isn’t the place for him, he needs to get out– 

His phone starts ringing and he fumbles to answer it quickly, before the disapproving looks. 

“Hi, Cas.” Dean, of course it is. 

“Hello, Dean.” 

“Just checking you were still there.” 

“I—” 

“Totally wasn’t about to bottle it before I called. Of course.” 

“You’re sat outside, you would have seen if I’d left.” 

“Not if you’d snuck out through the bathroom window.” 

“Hm.” 

“You can do this, babe.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Love ya.” 

“I know.” 

“Oh, you did _not_.” 

“I have to go, I think we’re about to start. I’m getting _looks._ ” 

“Since when have you let that bother you.” 

“Goodbye, Dean.” 

“See ya later.” 

The meeting starts and Cas listens patiently as people start to talk. He keeps half an eye on the clock, and as it ticks nearer to the end of the meeting he starts to feel a guilty hope that he’s going to get away without saying anything. 

There’s about a three second delay between him thinking that, and someone turning to him and asking him if he wants to share. Nice to know that fate or destiny or whatever malignant bastard it is that’s taken a merry interest in ruining his life is still on the ball. 

He gives a half-hearted little wave and introduces himself. 

“My name is Cas, and I’m a heroin addict.” 

There’s a murmur of greeting. 

He’s been rehearsing this in his head ever since he agreed to come to an NA meeting. He can’t be completely honest, of course, but if he just makes something up then there isn’t really much point in coming here. He talked it over with Charlie and Sam and they decided to just go for the truth, just with the names and species removed. 

“I grew up in a very close, insular family. I guess to outsiders it probably looked like a cult, but it was all I knew. I was told we were righteous, that what we were doing was for the good of all mankind. And I accepted that, for the longest time, but then. Someone showed me that what we were planning was wrong, that it would hurt people. So I turned against my family. It wasn’t a clean break, there was a lot in between, but the reason I’m here now, well. 

“One of my uh, brothers, didn’t take my betrayal well. He wanted to hurt me, and the people who had turned me away from my kin. He kidnapped me, got me addicted to heroin – he didn’t want to just kill me. He wanted to make me suffer – and my new family too. 

“I thought because it wasn’t my choice to start, that it’d be easy to stop. But it wasn’t. I drove away my friends, I begged the love of my life for drugs – tried to manipulate him by saying if he loved me he’d get me what I needed – wanted. 

“I managed to get clean for a while, but I wasn’t okay. I missed the drugs, there was something about them that made me feel powerful, righteous. How I’d felt before the break with my family. I relapsed in the worst way, and my partner bore the pain for that. I can’t do that to him again, I can’t rely just on him. I need to spread the weight of this struggle – I need your help.” 

He hasn’t made eye-contact with anyone the whole time he’s been talking. Scared of what he’ll see on their faces. The horror, the fear. The pity. 

“Well” he hears someone say, “that’s what we’re here for.” 

He looks at the person who spoke, Martha – back pain, spiralling opioid problem – and nods. She’s looking at him with sympathy, yeah, but also understanding. 

These people know, more or less, what he’s fighting against, and they’re fighting against more or less the same. 

This was a good idea. 

This is going to make things better. 

He lets out a long sigh, relaxes slightly into his chair and listens carefully as the next person starts to tell their story. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C'est fin(ish). There's an epilogue coming on Thursday that's 99% porn, and then two paragraphs after the porn of putting a neat little bow on the story at the end of the chapter, but we are, for the most part, done here. :o


	59. Epilogue: Here's the Porn, You Horny Bastards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to skip the porn but still read the like 2 paragraphs of ending skip to "He smells like home."

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Dean asks .

“If you ask me that one  more time I’m going to knee you in the balls.”  Cas responds , with his legendary tact and patience.

“ Kinky, but not my thing.” Dean says, with a wink, but he does take the hint , leaning back into  Cas’s personal space and kissing him slow and dirty.

He doesn’t make any other moves though and now  Cas really is going to kick him. Taking it slow blah blah he hasn’t been laid in what, 6 months and if he has to wait any longer he’s going to kill someone. 

He decides to go for direct, grabs at Dean’s crotch and starts to massage it. He’s already half hard, but that’s only halfway to what Cas wants so it’s not going to fly. Dean grunts, and moves his hand away. Cas isn’t happy about that and moves it right the fuck back and Dean leans back, sighing.

“ Cas , babe. It’s been long enough that you don’t want to be hurrying this along or I’ll come in about three seconds.”

“You think I give a fuck how long it takes _you_ to come?”

“Charming.”

Cas smacks him in the chest 

“Alright, alrigh t. Let’s get you  good and naked. ”

Cas gets his own jeans and boxers off  ‘cause he isn’t a goddamn invalid, but he does accept help for the shirt because pulling it off himself makes his back twinge and he doesn’t want to have to think about that right now. He sits down on the edge of the bed, supporting his weight on his arms slightly behind him.

“Why am I naked when you’re still completely clothed?” He asks Dean, who laughs.

“ Here I was thinking you’d want a bit of a show, something sexy and fun and  intimate and you’re just like fucking hurry up get it over with. I’m an artist, can’t rush art.”

“You’re a bullshit artist, I’ll give you that.”

Dean winks, undoes  his jeans and kicks them off, palms at his crotch.

“Oh so you’re allowed to touch it.”

He ignores  Cas , gives himself a few  soft squeezes and pulls off his boxers too. 

“Shirt.”  Cas says , with an undercurrent of desperation.  He wants to feel Dean’s hot, naked body pressed up close and sweaty to his and he doesn’t care if it hurts . He knew he’d missed this but god, he hadn’t realised how much. He needs this, more than he needs fucking air.

“Wow  Cas , my cock is right there and all you want to see i s my —” Dean cuts himself off as he catches the hunger in  Cas’s look , hooks his fingers under his shirt and eases it up teasingly slowly. 

He grabs the lube from the drawer and slowly, painfully slowly lowers himself over Cas’s lap. He puts his weight on his knees either side of Cas’s hips, dips his ass so it brushes tantalisingly over Cas’s cock. Cas groans but Dean stops it with another kiss, tongue shoved roughly into his mouth.

Cas realises oh so slightly too late what’s happening, barely manages to make a muffled warning noise int o  Dean’s mouth before he comes.  It feels okay, more a relief than pleasure really and he groans i n disappointment. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go down. 

Dean pulls  back, reaches and touches the sticky mess coating his ass and makes a rueful little half laugh.

“Guess it’s been a long time for you too.” 

Cas makes a  grumpy  noise of assent .

“ The thing about dry spells like this,” Dean begins, in  a slow, thoughtful tone , “is that sometimes you just need to get one out of the way and then  if you can coax it back, it’s way better.”

“I’m listening.”

“So if for example I was to grind my hips like this , and kiss your neck like this ” the next words are mumbled into  Cas’s throat, “ and then run my fingers through your hair and tell you that I’ve been dreaming about feeling that cock  plunging into me for months, about how I’ve missed it so much I almost feel like I can taste it.  How I want you to take that lube  by your hand and work m e open with your fingers, one by one, feel you inside me, stretching me out, getting me ready for your great  big fucking cock…”

He trails off as  Cas starts to follow his instructions, moaning lightly.  And the dirty talk was doing a good job, but that’s what  Cas really needed to get back in the party. His cock starts to thicken again,  and Dean feels it touching him, takes it in one hand and pumps it slowly up to full hardness as  Cas works to open him up.

“I’m ready.” He groans eventually,  and  Cas hears him but he doesn’t want to pull his fingers away . Dean has to reach behind him and move the hand gently to his cock. 

“I’m about to blow so don’t  touch me until you’re close.” He murmurs , eyes closed and head thrown back. 

His muscles are trembling with the effort of hovering over  Cas , not putting too much weight on him but it’s worth it. He’ll take all the cramp in the goddamn world just to feel this. 

He lowers himself down slowly into  Cas’s cock, groaning out lo ud as  it pushes inside him .  He’s skewered by two different kinds of bliss, the physical, chemical one and the emotional one — he and  Cas are locked together, as entwined as two people can be.  One writhing, groaning mess of endorphins and sweat and  come. 

He rocks his hips a few times,  he wants to take it slowly, ease them into this in a  gradually building crescendo.  A long slow burn to paradise. 

Unfortunately he’s not the one in charge here. Not only does his downstairs brain have other ideas, but aMr I’ve already come once but that wasn’t enough has started to pump his hips desperately. Dean gives in, matches Cas’s rhythm and throws his head back even further, groaning louder and louder with each thrust.

It feels so goddamn good, almost too good. He can barely stand it, wants it to go on forever and to stop right now. 

“ Cas . ” he groans, teeth gritted and  he hears an answering moan . He fists his hands in  Cas’s hair and  brings their foreheads together, can’t be touching enough of him ,  wants to climb inside him and never leave.

Cas’s hand grasps his cock and it’s enough and 

Fuck

They come together,  Cas’s furious  pumping slowing down but not stopping, thrusting through his orgasm. Dean sinks onto  Cas’s lap, brain too gone to remember why he was trying not to.  Cas winces slightly and  messily they roll onto their sides together,  Cas as the big spoon holding Dean tight as they  pant desperately together.

Cas buries his face in the back of Dean’s neck, in his hair. He smells like sweat and come and  cheap shampoo.

He smells like home. 

Cas briefly considers saying something to that effect, but he doesn’t. He stays lying there,  Dean in his arms, feeling his heartbeat, so goddamn loud, gradually fade to normal.

He can feel Dean trembling slightly, doesn’t know whether it’s from the effort he spent trying not to hurt  Cas , or something entirely different .

They fall asleep like that, together, even though it’s only three in the afternoon.  They sleep, and then they get up and complain about the sticky crusted mess and, and they argue about who gets to shower first,  and  then  decide to shower together. 

And  they stand together under the warm spray  and help each other get clean, and  when  Dean offers to help with  Cas’s bandages and  Cas says no, he’s not ready for D ean to be involved with that yet it twinges at Dean a little, but  he nods, and he kisses him lightly on the cheek and tells him that  he gets it, and tells him, if that ever changes you’ll know where to find me. And  Cas throws back a joke, an insult. 

And they are, for the most part, okay. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we are done. Finally. If any of you have been here from the start I am so sorry, and so grateful that you stuck with me. Thank you to everyone who commented, you made it oh so much easier to keep going once I'd started up again. I don't have any plans currently to return to this world, but hey, never say never. I will, however, at some point do a last pass complete edit to make sure it's the best it can be, but I want to take a break first, so can't promise that'll be soon. See ya.

**Author's Note:**

> Link to tumblr promo post, sharing would be greatly appreciated, but of course isn’t obligatory:  
> https://rabidbinbadger.tumblr.com/post/619753109823045632/cas-is-back-that-means-things-are-gonna-be-okay


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